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SCO's Open Letter to Open Source Community
joefish_only_1 writes "SCO CEO has posted an open letter to the open source community. There's some things Mr McBride mentions that I hadn't heard of yet, like an admission by Bruce Perens that "UNIX System V code is, in fact, in Linux, and it shouldn't be there."" A slashdot reader posted a comment recently
that breaks it down quite well.
I'm not going to believe anything ol' Darl says until I hear absoultely everything else and all opposing views.
All your cash are belong to us!
Now, reap what you've sown.
You can have $699 for my SCO Intellectual Property for Linux License when you pry it from my cold, empty wallet.
Sincerely,
Anonymous Coward
Sure this letter is really open? No strings? Will I be sued if I don't include parts of this letter into my own?
I could be wrong. I'm always wrong...
At least Slashdot gives every single of their brainfarts a broad public forum. What else to wish for?
Don't be fooled by this "open" letter! We've all heard that word used before and now it is costing us $699 per proc!!!
Bruce stated that removing teh rog copyright notice from bsd code that sgi submitted was not right.. now my opinion but that a submission of the same code with copyright notice intact is legal to do fro Linux kernel
Once again McBride is lying..
remember folks some BSd code was org System V code defined as opensourced as part of an out of court settlement between at&t and a cl university..
Don't Tread on OpenSource
It seems the time is right to move to the Hurd...
Chris Sontag - Senior Vice President and General Manager, SCOsource
There is something rather disgusting about this letter from SCO, and the following passage highlights it rather well:
"There is no question about the affiliation of the attacker - Open Source leader Eric Raymond was quoted as saying that he was contacted by the perpetrator and that "he's one of us." To Mr Raymond's partial credit, he asked the attacker to stop. However, he has yet to disclose the identity of the perpetrator so that justice can be done.
No one can tolerate DDoS attacks and other kinds of attacks in this Information Age economy that relies so heavily on the Internet. Mr Raymond and the entire Open Source community need to aggressively help the industry police these types of crimes. If they fail to do so it casts a shadow over the entire Open Source movement."
Now, substitute the phrases "black people", "black person", and "black community" for "Open Source"...
That the DDoS attackers were "members of the open source community" is irrelevent. It is like saying they had red hair, and therefore ALL red-haired people should bear responsibility. No. No. No. No.
You cannot generalise from a person, or even several people, to an entire community. That is wrong. Indeed, the whole letter is full of generalisations from (often inaccurate) specifics.
Down with SCO!
--- My dad's political betting
The article doesn't offer as much insight into SCO's thinking with this apparently suicidal (PR wise anyway) move, but one thing does stand out, the use of the words 'improper contribution'. Not 'improper use' or This for me shows just how empty SCO's talk is. How exactly does someone improperly contribute something? If you contribute something, you do so. If something is stolen or copied from you, it's stolen. SCO didn't even have the guts to accuse anyone of stealing, they just came up with this nonsensical phrase. Kind of telling.
So much to comment on... so little time. Well, the first thing that I see that stands out is this quote by McBride:
The second development was an admission by Open Source leader Bruce Perens that UNIX System V code (owned by SCO) is, in fact, in Linux, and it shouldn't be there. Mr Perens stated that there is "an error in the Linux developer's process" which allowed Unix System V code that "didn't belong in Linux" to end up in the Linux kernel (source: ComputerWire, August 25, 2003).
Here is the original quote from the referenced ComputerWire article:
The other SCO code snippet Perens walks through had to do with memory allocation functions in Unix System V and Linux. He says there was, in fact, "an error in the Linux developer's process," specifically a programmer at SGI, and he says while the Linux community had the legal right to this code, it didn't belong in Linux and was therefore removed.
Talk about out of context! The assertion that the code is owned by SCO is made only by Mr. McBride, who neglected to mention that it has already been found and removed.
I have written an open letter to the open source community. Unfortunately, I am not in a position to reveal its contents since that would mean compromising our trade secrets. However, I welcome you to license a copy of my open letter by signing a Non-Disclosure Agreement and payment of $699.
Yours affectionately,
Darl McBride
CEO, SCO Inc.
I read the Letter earlier, and it struck me that as with so much SCO posturing, this one gets it wrong too. Darl points the finger at the Open Source development process and Linus as the problem.
Instead it is clear to anyone involved in Open Source development that it is the responsibility of the submitter to submit only code they are legally entitiled too. If an SGI developer did strip SCO copyrights from code and was allowed to submit this code to Linus for inclussion, then it is SGI who have the problem. It has long been understood that the very process of submitting code to an Open Source project was an implicit decleration of ownership of that code. The same rules apply in business; unless you're SCO you can only sell something that you own yourself.
I've yet to see a good rebutal of Darls Open Letter, but I suspect ESR or Bruce is typing one up as we speak..
Mr. McBride is a troll. don't feed.
So now they're targetting SGI. I just hope nobody settles out of court. If they have to make a real claim (x is ours) in court then it'll be easy to fix (remove/rewrite x).
DDoS attacks, maybe your getting DDoS because everyone's trying to get to your site to buy a Linux license from you.
There's all this unsubstantiated talk. If SCO wants the Open Source community to take them seriously, they should publicly release the code which they claim to be in Linux, and furthermore, provide proof that that code did not exist legally before SCO made it "theirs."
A blog like any other.
SCO does have one good point: open source leaves way too much to chance where intellectual property is concerned. Maybe releases should be certified by an independent agency that hires lawyers to help work out the patent issues... or maybe they should just release in countries like Europe until we fix some of the absurdities in our patent system?
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
McBride is now demanding that Perens should hand over the DDoS perpetrator's identity.
He's clearly out to divide and conquer.
That's why things like DDoS backfire. It can be used against us. People, please refrain from such tactics! Don't lower yourself to SCO's level!
It's a pity the world can't see the lying McBride is doing. Nobody in the mainstream media seems to actually check back to who said what and provide a critical analysis of what's being said, who REALLY said what, and what it meant. 99% of what's put out as "articles" about SCO is just press releases, with no journalism on top.
What needs to be said, basically, is big scale mainstream media looking at the reality of the situation and bluntly saying "McBride is a lying cunt"
So now we know that Mr. Perens was the secret traitor. Hmmm, come to think of it, I recently saw Linus sneaking around Redmond wearing a fake mustache...
The subpoena sets September 10th as the date for a deposition, at Snell & Wilmer's law offices in Salt Lake City, and instructs that these are the documents Canopy Group's representative, whoever they choose to get deposed on behalf of Canopy, must produce on that date:
1. All documents concerning this lawsuit, plaintiff's claims or IBM's defenses or counterclaims.
2. All documents concerning any communications regarding this lawsuit, plaintiff's claims or IBM's defenses or counterclaims.
3. All documents concerning plaintiff's rights relating to UNIX or Linux.
4. All documents concerning any strategy, plan, effort, or action (actual or contemplated) to use or enforce (or to threaten to use or enforce) rights to UNIX or Linux.
5. All documents concerning any open-source license, including the GNU General Public License.
6. All documents concerning any lawsuit other than this lawsuit (actual or contemplated) involving plaintiff and relating to UNIX or Linux.
7. All documents concerning any agreement, understanding or communication with Microsoft, Sun, Computer Associates, Tarantella, AT&T, USL, HP or Novell, relating to UNIX or Linux.
8. All documents concerning plaintiff's efforts to license UNIX or Linux.
9. All documents concerning plaintiff's alleged evidence of UNIX in Linux.
10. All documents concerning plaintiff's alleged evidence of misconduct or breaches of duty by IBM.
11. All documents concerning plaintiff's UNIX or Linux business.
12. Documents sufficient to show the organizational structure or personnel of The Canopy Group.
13. All documents relating to the ownership of plaintiff.
14. All documents relating to purchases or sales of plaintiff's stock since January 1, 2003.
15. All documents in the possession, custody, or control of Ralph Yarrow, Jan Newman, Darcy Mott, Raymond J. Noorda, Lewena Noorda, Joyce Wiley, Mark Cusick, or Dan L. Baker relating to UNIX, Linux, or this lawsuit.
16. All documents provided to plaintiff by The Canopy Group or provided to The Canopy Group by plaintiff relating to UNIX, Linux, or this lawsuit.
17. All documents concerning the decision to commence or pursue this lawsuit or other lawsuits relating to plaintiff's alleged rights relating to UNIX or Linux.
18. All documents concerning the decision to suspend distribution of plaintiff's Linux products or code.
19. All documents concerning any analysis of any IBM conduct related to Unix or Linux.
20. All documents concerning any UNIX source code, derivative works, modification. or methods contributed to Linux or to the open source community by AT&T, USL, Novell, Tarantella, or plaintiff.
21. All documents concerning the relationship between plaintiff and The Canopy Group.
22. All documents concerning any statements, declaration, affidavit, analysis, assessment, or opinion rrelating to plaintiff's rights to UNIX or Linux.
23. All documents concerning any statement, affidavit, declaration, analysis, assessment, or opinion relating to this litigation.
24. All documents concerning the nature, calculation, and basis of any damages or injuries plaintiff claims in this matter.
Anyone who can afford to throw a temper tantrum over someone creating something better than unix must have his pockets too full of money that he could be doing something useful with, like contributing to the Open Source project, or contributing my charity for underprivileged teens. (Who don't have computers, who need them ; ) )
I love NetHack.
SCO CEO Posts Open Letter to the Open Source Community
By Maureen O'Gara
The most controversial issue in the information technology industry today is the ongoing battle over software copyrights and intellectual property. This battle is being fought largely between vendors who create and sell proprietary software, and the Open Source community. My company, the SCO Group, became a focus of this controversy when we filed a lawsuit against IBM alleging that SCO's proprietary Unix code has been illegally copied into the free Linux operating system. In doing this we angered some in the Open Source community by pointing out obvious intellectual property problems that exist in the current Linux software development model.
This debate about Open Source software is healthy and beneficial. It offers long-term benefits to the industry by addressing a new business model in advance of wide-scale adoption by customers. But in the last week of August two developments occurred that adversely affect the long-term credibility of the Open Source community, with the general public and with customers.
The first development followed another series of Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks on SCO, which took place two weeks ago. These were the second and third such attacks in four months and have prevented Web users from accessing our web site and doing business with SCO. There is no question about the affiliation of the attacker - Open Source leader Eric Raymond was quoted as saying that he was contacted by the perpetrator and that "he's one of us." To Mr Raymond's partial credit, he asked the attacker to stop. However, he has yet to disclose the identity of the perpetrator so that justice can be done.
No one can tolerate DDoS attacks and other kinds of attacks in this Information Age economy that relies so heavily on the Internet. Mr Raymond and the entire Open Source community need to aggressively help the industry police these types of crimes. If they fail to do so it casts a shadow over the entire Open Source movement and raises questions about whether Open Source is ready to take a central role in business computing. We cannot have a situation in which companies fear they may be next to suffer computer attacks if they take a business or legal position that angers the Open Source community. Until these illegal attacks are brought under control, enterprise customers and mainstream society will become increasingly alienated from anyone associated with this type of behavior.
The second development was an admission by Open Source leader Bruce Perens that UNIX System V code (owned by SCO) is, in fact, in Linux, and it shouldn't be there. Mr Perens stated that there is "an error in the Linux developer's process" which allowed Unix System V code that "didn't belong in Linux" to end up in the Linux kernel (source: ComputerWire, August 25, 2003). Mr Perens continued with a string of arguments to justify the "error in the Linux developer's process." However, nothing can change the fact that a Linux developer on the payroll of Silicon Graphics stripped copyright attributions from copyrighted System V code that was licensed to Silicon Graphics under strict conditions of use, and then contributed that source code to Linux as though it was clean code owned and controlled by SGI. This is a clear violation of SGI's contract and copyright obligations to SCO. We are currently working to try and resolve these issues with SGI.
This improper contribution of Unix code by SGI into Linux is one small example that reveals fundamental structural flaws in the Linux development process. In fact, this issue goes to the very heart of whether Open Source can be trusted as a development model for enterprise computing software. The intellectual property roots of Linux are obviously flawed at a systemic level under the current model. To date, we claim that more than one million lines of Unix System V protected code have been contributed to Linux through this model. The flaws inherent in the Linux process must be openly addr
"... was an admission by Open Source leader Bruce Perens that UNIX System V code (owned by SCO) is, in fact, in Linux, and it shouldn't be there"
There is absolutely no way for SCO to spin this. This is a simple lie. Not a twist on a truth, not a half-truth, not something that they could ever show even the most tenuous evidence for. It's a straight lie.
It'll be interesting to see how Darl gets out of that one when the SEC knock on his door.
Does SCO check to ensure the code their programmers submit is legal? Or do they just accept that it is?
It is funny that they are sending a letter to the OpenSource community, considering that before they said that the OpenSource license is illegal.
"There is no teacher but the enemy."-Mazer Rackham
I posted this in the previous SCO thread, but am reposting it here where it is more appropriate. Most of the typo's have been cleaned up too. You can also see the full text in my journal.
An Open Response to Darl McBride's Open Letter to the Open Source Community
(First Draft)
Dear Mr. McBride,
First, let me introduce myself. My name is John Gabriel. I have been working in the technical field for 15 years, as a Network Administrator, Applications Manager, Network Manager, Sr. Networking Engineer, and now, Freelance Consultant. And, yes, I'm an MCSE.
My first experiences with Unix occurred in the late 1970's, during school field trips to local colleges. I also did Unix technical support for students while taking a class in Pascal in the late 1980's. My first experience with Linux dates to 1994, when I downloaded whatever Linux kernel was available at that time.
While I did install it successfully, on a Compaq Deskpro 386/25, I quickly abandoned it as the system didn't have enough memory to support X Windows. Several years later, in 1998, I became a Caldera customer, with a purchase of Caldera OpenLinux Base ver. 1.22, with Linux kernel 2.0.33. I ran into similar problems again.
About a year ago, I became interested again Linux, and now run Linux on my home workstation in a dual-boot configuration with Windows XP.
About 4-5 months ago, I began following the SCO v. IBM story. I was at first inclined to be open-minded towards SCO's claims. It wouldn't be the first time a small company has had its copyrights violated by a larger vendor, though the violator is usually, in my experience, Microsoft, as exemplified by Caldera's history with DR-DOS.
However, the more I researched the story and SCO's claims, the more convinced I became that SCO's claims were, well, baseless. Being the type that usually likes to "root for the underdog", I was surprised by my conclusions.
Anyway, that's enough introduction. What follows is an Open Response to your Open Letter to the Open Source Community. I grant everyone, including you, permission to re-publish it, or quote from it, without restriction, except that my comments be properly attributed to myself. Consider it under a "BSD-style" license if you like.
1) The most controversial issue in the information technology industry today is the ongoing battle over software copyrights and intellectual property. This battle is being fought largely between vendors who create and sell proprietary software, and the Open Source community. My company, the SCO Group, became a focus of this controversy when we filed a lawsuit against IBM alleging that SCO's proprietary Unix code has been illegally copied into the free Linux operating system. In doing this we angered some in the Open Source community by pointing out obvious intellectual property problems that exist in the current Linux software development model.
Mr. McBride,
Response to Paragraph 1 of your "Open Letter":
This is very difficult to respond to, because your analysis of the issues and of the reasons for the Open Source community's anger is, in the words of the great physicist Wolfgang Pauli, "so bad it's not even wrong."
For instance, your own lawsuit against IBM does not allege that "SCO's proprietary Unix code has been illegally copied into Linux" -- it alleges that code *owned* by IBM but under contractual "control" rights to SCO has been copied into Linux. Surely, you don't dispute that IBM owns the relevant copyrights and patents to NUMA, JFS, and RCU?
Or do you dispute Section 2 of Exhibit C on your web site, the ATT-IBM sideletter agreement, which states in part, "we (ATT) agree that modifications and derivative works prepared by or for you (IBM) are owned by you"?
The truth is there are many reasons the Open source community is angered with you and the actions of The SCO Group and The Canopy Group, none of which have to do with "intellectual
Site slashdoted already: This SCO stuff is really starting to p*** me off, they clearly have no genuine claim, we know it, they know it. Rather than keep sounding off about it we may as well just wait for IBM etc to win the lawsuits and SCO to disapear. Even if the unthinkable happened and SCO had a claim they could only go after the distro companies, the individual users would be safish as long as they kept their mouth shut. GNU software would still exist, and at worst the kernel would have to have some code rewritten.
You missed out '11th Sept 2003 - 'Bob' comes a ridin in on a giant fire-breathing Atlantean Penguin.'
This quote sounds like he's trying to "take back" the BSDs:
"Fair use" applies to educational, public service and related applications and does not justify commercial misappropriation. Books and Internet sites intended and authorized for the purpose of teaching and other non-commercial use cannot be copied for commercial use. We believe that some of the SCO software code that has ended up in the Linux operating system got there through this route. This violates our intellectual property rights.
Best. Troll. Ever.
This debate about Open Source software is healthy and beneficial. It offers long-term benefits to the industry by addressing a new business model in advance of wide-scale adoption by customers. But in the last week of August two developments occurred that adversely affect the long-term credibility of the Open Source community, with the general public and with customers.
The first development followed another series of Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks on SCO, which took place two weeks ago. These were the second and third such attacks in four months and have prevented Web users from accessing our web site and doing business with SCO. There is no question about the affiliation of the attacker - Open Source leader Eric Raymond was quoted as saying that he was contacted by the perpetrator and that "he's one of us." To Mr Raymond's partial credit, he asked the attacker to stop. However, he has yet to disclose the identity of the perpetrator so that justice can be done.
No one can tolerate DDoS attacks and other kinds of attacks in this Information Age economy that relies so heavily on the Internet. Mr Raymond and the entire Open Source community need to aggressively help the industry police these types of crimes. If they fail to do so it casts a shadow over the entire Open Source movement and raises questions about whether Open Source is ready to take a central role in business computing. We cannot have a situation in which companies fear they may be next to suffer computer attacks if they take a business or legal position that angers the Open Source community. Until these illegal attacks are brought under control, enterprise customers and mainstream society will become increasingly alienated from anyone associated with this type of behavior.
The second development was an admission by Open Source leader Bruce Perens that UNIX System V code (owned by SCO) is, in fact, in Linux, and it shouldn't be there. Mr Perens stated that there is "an error in the Linux developer's process" which allowed Unix System V code that "didn't belong in Linux" to end up in the Linux kernel (source: ComputerWire, August 25, 2003). Mr Perens continued with a string of arguments to justify the "error in the Linux developer's process." However, nothing can change the fact that a Linux developer on the payroll of Silicon Graphics stripped copyright attributions from copyrighted System V code that was licensed to Silicon Graphics under strict conditions of use, and then contributed that source code to Linux as though it was clean code owned and controlled by SGI. This is a clear violation of SGI's contract and copyright obligations to SCO. We are currently working to try and resolve these issues with SGI.
This improper contribution of Unix code by SGI into Linux is one small example that reveals fundamental structural flaws in the Linux development process. In fact, this issue goes to the very heart of whether Open Source can be trusted as a development model for enterprise computing software. The intellectual property roots of Linux are obviously flawed at a systemic level under the current model. To date, we claim that more than one million lines of Unix System V protected code have been contributed to Linux through this model. The flaws inherent in the Linux process must be openly addressed and fixed.
At a minimum, IP sources should be checked to assure that copyright
Does everything include nothing?
So - while this is going on, the process itself is hurting the credibility of the platform we deliver our software on. Given that Gartner recommended a wait-and-see attitude towards Linux and Linux applications, our potential customers lose to a larger or smaller degree interest when they hear "Linux" now. A sad change, and I am sure it will ultimately prove temporary.
So given that we want to spread our risk,
what alternative operating systems generally requires the least effort to port to? Abandoning Linux is not an issue, we just want to make sure we keep our investors happy to make sure our application lives on. Actually, our customers (which are banks) have been quite pleased with the price/performance ratio of both Linux and our product. It's just a matter of ensuring our continued survival, not a matter of siding with SCO.
Stop the brainwash
"Men lie."
"Yeah, about sleeping with other women, but never about bioluminescent plankton."
-Dan Brown
I remember after everyone analysed the SCOForum code prominent people saying things like that (eg. Open Source coders violated SCO's license because they didn't include the BSD attribution statement) and I knew right away they made a huge mistake. I'm sorry to see it's been confirmed.
Anyone who purports to speak for this community should realise the stakes involved and wise up.
In the efforts of Messrs Perens and Raymond to be balanced and reasonable they have given the enemy (Daryl McBeezlebub) significant ammunition. Quoting people out of context is part of lawsuit public relations 101. SCO will hammer away and keep repeating this like an autistic child and unfortunately some weak minded people will be swayed by this argument. If you ever watch television talk shows this is the most common technique for winning arguments.
I think Linux is still winning the public relations war but really, please don't accept collective guilt unless you personally fucked up. Because for all we know SGI has legitimate rights to that code.
Is it REALLY an Open Letter, or does it fall under SCO's trademark/copyright?
Negotiate with who? Why? For what? If you're referring to the alleged infringing code, reveal what it is so it can be confirmed and replaced. Otherwise, shut your trap, sell your stock and go out of business like the market demands.
Bruce, I know you read slashdot, did you actually say thing thingsquoted in the article?
Dear Darl
.. would you be satisfied if they didnt show what the alleged stolen code was?
I am not going to pay for something you may not even own.
If a company were to claim SCO stole code and that every SCO user should pay $699
More SCO obfuscation. Reading the 'break down' it is plain that SCO is twisting Bruce Peren's words for their own benefit. They just 'happened' to leave out the part about the code in question being old, uncompilable, and legal to be used according to the AT&T decision back in the '70s.
The tenor of SCO's accusations is going higher - a clear sign that they are grabbing at straws.
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
nt
- You may re-publish this material. You may excerpt it, reformat it and translate it as necessary for your presentation. You may not edit it to deliberately misrepresent my opinion.
Isn't Darl taking Bruce's words out of context and misrepresenting them? Copyright violation, anyone?....This is what global corporations will require. And it is these customers who will determine the ultimate fate of Open Source - not SCO, not IBM, and not Open Source leaders.
Through out this whole article this klutz talks as if he is the guiding light for the Open source community. Screw it he is attacking Linux and that's it cuz there are Windows programs that are open source. Why does he think that corporations will decide what the open source needs? Has not many of Country Governments adopted Linux and use it for their needs? And with this would not many businesses also see the diversity of Linux applications? Any how I really hate how this person is trying to play the victim. As many people have noticed that this has been going on for a while; it's not like the code just appeared one day, well what ever code they are claiming. I honestly believe that this aggressive action is being directed/assisted by a higher power, and I don't mean religiously either.
This SIG pulled due to lack of funding. (This damn war is costing too much!)
I think Mr. McBride is going down for extortion. This guy acts like some high-tech mafia kingpin. Not like Tony Soprano, but more like Guy Caballero (from SCTV for you young uns).
"If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid." - Epictetus
This letter is a thinly guised attempt to misrepresent the facts and send a message to companies considering open source. The message reads something like: "We're right...and we're so confident we're right, we're going to talk down to the open source community, patronize them a bit, and then offer to work with them to *help* them out of their jam. We're so nice and right and honest, you have to trust us and feel sorry for the way we've been abused."
Too bad we can't tack this on to the beginning of the open letter....it'd make things a bit clearer for the average reader:
Even if you take SCO's 'facts' at face value, all it would amount to is a vindication of FSF's copy rights assignment policy, created exactly to prevent such claims.
BTW, I write copy rights intentionally.
Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I'm interested in "Best Current Practices" documents that gives advice on how to best preceed in a Free Software project in order to avoid becoming vulnerable to problems with copyright or other legal issues. Of course the GNU project has some pretty good policies, but asking people to so something just because it's a GNU policy will often just make them complain about "GNU fanatics" instead of them taking the matter serious.
Therefore, it would be very helpful to have insights and policy recommendations from other sources as well.
Greetings,
Norbert.
First off, patent issues are the sole responsibility of the person holding the patent. They have to identify and chose to prosecute infringers.
On the copyright side it's even worse. How would a third-party identify copyright infringement? You would need access to protected source code in order to perform comparisons in the first place. This again is why the holder of the copyright is responsible for IDENTIFYING the alleged infringements.
While SCO has alleged infringement, they have yet to offer any proof or file any copyright lawsuits.
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
In addition to SCO owning Linux, now SCO owns BSD as well... Things are so confusing in McBrideLand...
Hmmmm.... Wonder if this isn't a round about way of McBride admitting that the SCO source tree includes BSD code which has had it's attributions removed in favor of it's own? Remember that case that AT&T lost against the BSD folks because they had so much BSD code in their source tree. Now where did the SCO code come from again?
Likewise, we cannot have a situation in which computer users fear they may be next to suffer ruinous litigation if they take a business or legal position that angers SCO.
For those who can't be bothered to read the article, here's a summary:
Dear Open Source community,
Fsck you!
Sincerely,
Darl MrBride, SCO.
- sig? who is this sig of which you speak?
Maureen O'Gara:
The intellectual property roots of Linux are obviously flawed at a systemic level under the current model.
The Architect:
While this answer functioned it was obviously fundamentally flawed thus creating the otherwise contradictory systemic anomaly that if left unchecked might threaten the system itself. Ergo those that refused the program while a minority, if unchecked, would constitute an escalating probability of disaster.
Ah thats me dosed up on SCO diesal power for the day.
;)
I don't think he is any position to give lectures on the concequences of attacks to business when his company is making threats and legal attacks against any company that makes of Linux.
And of course his grand reasoning that the entire Linux development process is fundamentally flawed by holding up a single example. A brick don't make a house.
And even that example when looked at in the proper context has been removed from kernel even though it was released under open source license by AT&T.
Oh well, wish Darl would stop dribbling at the mouth and actually say something of substance otherwise this is all going to be rather boring and I will have to go back to sleep.
Again McBribe demonstates he does not understand open source claiming it needs a business model for sustainablility. That could not be further from the truth and is not how GNU/Linux and open source has gotten to its present state.
Businesses has picked up on open source because its current development and "business" model has created reliable and useful software. Some thing SCO needs to go back to the drawing board on.
My karma is not a Chameleon.
The Open Source development method has indeed a weakness: it is open. That means any company can see if their copyrights are being infringed, and can act accordingly.
This also opens up the possibility of people maliciously including code in an open source project, hoping to beneffit from litigation at some point.
This weakness can be turned into a great strength: with some many eyes looking, some with good intentions, others only looking for personal and immediate beneffit, the process will assure that the code present in open source projects is the most clean code in the industry.
Seriously, does anybody believe that Microsoft, SCO and other propietary companies do not have *any* copyright infringment in their code base?
The US legal system sucks. Basically we have no rights to propect our good names. McBride can repeadly publish lies and there is little to be done to stop him. Worse yet, the publications he uses to spout these lies are bought and paid-for by advertising dollars OS developers and vendors can't hope to match.
Seriously I can see where people go nuts because of frustration and do crazy things in retaliation. Gheesh, could someone at least post a HS picture of McBride with a pimply face?
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
"Fair use" applies to educational, public service and related applications and does not justify commercial misappropriation. Books and Internet sites intended and authorized for the purpose of teaching and other non-commercial use cannot be copied for commercial use.
This is a sneaky bit of double speak. While it is true that books cannot be copied verbatim (regardless of whether they are for commercial use or not) the knowledge contained in them most certainly can. If I read a maths book, I am entitled to use what I learned in any way I choose and do not owe the author anything other than perhaps a thank you.
Carpe Daemon
Hey Darl
Fuck you!
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
This is quite a well-crafted piece of FUD: it perpetuates the notion that Linux is being developed by a bunck of pimply-faced hackers in their parents' basements, and that the developers don't care about IP rights at all. In fact, he is making the hidden accusation that the current open source development model does not "respect the rules of law"
However, the Open-Source Development Model is the most thought-out software development model that I know of, as far as a legal sense goes. Let's face it: who actually reads and follows those shrink-wrapped software licenses? I'm willing to bet that the only people who take them seriously are the open-source developers and users, because the license is the only legal right they have to open-source code. (They're also possibly the only ones anal enough to read the entire click-through license on commercial software). I've always held that if more people actually read what was in those commercial software licenses, there would be a lot more people swearing off commercial software for good.
The GPL and BSD licenses are well-crafted legal documents, and the transparency of the development process should put to rest all patent and copyright infringement concerns: if something infringes, the proof is there for everyone to see, and the maintainers are responsible for removing it, because it never should have been there in the first place. When Microsoft or SCO violates a source-code patent, there's no way of knowing because you can't see the code!
Given many recent statements by people related to SCO (including the Perens quote that others here have said is taken out of context, and SCO's blanket assertion of rights over BSD code that looks to be included in the AT&T settlemnent) that have turned out to be, at best, exaggerations, and at worst, outright lies and mischaracterizations, one has to wonder which side has more respect for the rules of law.
Bruce said:
"The other SCO code snippet Perens walks through had to do with memory allocation functions in Unix System V and Linux. He says there was, in fact, "an error in the Linux developer's process," specifically a programmer at SGI, and he says while the Linux community had the legal right to this code, it didn't belong in Linux and was therefore removed."
Was twisted by SCO into:
"an admission by Open Source leader Bruce Perens that UNIX System V code (owned by SCO) is, in fact, in Linux, and it shouldn't be there. Mr Perens stated that there is "an error in the Linux developer's process" which allowed Unix System V code that "didn't belong in Linux" to end up in the Linux kernel"
So by saying it was REMOVED (we will say it slow so you can follow along Darl), Bruce Perens admitted that it ended up in the Linux kernel? Can SCO tell the truth at all, or do they all just live on Bizarro world?
Insert pithy comment here.
May I suggest that we just ignore this new troll from McBride?
It add nothing substantially new to the discussion.
The only thing McBride hopes to accomplish with this letter is to discredit the community once again. It makes no sense to dissect the letter and refute every false claim, because this will either be ignored or countered with more lies. Can we just stay calm and think of ways to get through to the few uninformed decision makers who believe the libel.
SCO: "We are offering a Linux amnesty. Tell us who you are, where you live and the number of copies of Linux distros you're running, and we won't invoice you."
Oh man, this sounds really cool! What do EFF say about it?
...and it's *not* meant as an "open letter to the open source community." This letter was written as a PR move, plain and simple. It's riddled with half-truths and full-on lies. McBride knew damn well that the open source community would be able to debunk almost everything he says, but he also know that the media wouldn't. Mr. Reporter reading this letter will simply take everything in it as fact and report it, which is exactly what SCO wants. After all, why would this letter contain lies? So far the media has barely touched SCO's opposition, but take a look at the list of headlines that simply discuss SCO's claims.
Last week someone made a comment that noted that SCO releases something like this right before some of the executives stock is scheduled to sell. The comment closed with something along the lines of "look for more FUD on Monday." Hmmm... is Tuesday close enough?
I originally coded the first instance of "Hello World" in C, pascal and x86 machine code...
/dev/null
if you have ever taken a programming class and copied any of my IP you can send me a cheque for $699 or i'll sneak into your house when you are asleep and rm -f all your mp3s
oh, and tell McBruped to shove his letter up his
The more that I think about this whole debacle, the winners the losers, the methods and tactics being used, the more I can smell Microsoft at work. They have been bellyaching about IP and Open Source for a while now, and trying to get a handle on how to "Defeat" Linux as they have seen it grow. Their usual tactic of "buying the company out" can't work with Linux (there's noone to buy), so they have sought other methods. They know that UNIX/Linux have long and deep roots, and there is always going to be some cross fertilisation between the two, especially for the simple routines like malloc() where there is one good way to do it, and it's so public , why not do it that way (should code reuse really be illegal?). Microsoft have (quite cleverly) released that as the source is open, they can attack the roots of the source, have seen that because Linux is open all source has to be accounted for, and seen that there is a big intertwining mass of companies that would be brought into any legal battle and they would probably manage to kill two birds with one stone (Linux/Unix). They probably thought, hmm we can't been seen to be openly trashing the open source communict so how can we achieve this, and had SCO do their bidding for them - realising that SCO was a company with a large Unix IP cache, but a company that was dead in the water. They have basically stood back and thrown the match into the lake of petrol and stood back to watch the fight commence, and to be honest it has worked quite well up until now.
I don't think their tactics will work though, atleast not here in Europe (where IP and code are a very grey area) I think the Linux genie is well and truely out of the bottle now. And as long as there is a decent base compiler thats left free of any IP fall out, there will always be free unices about.
Hi, We, the open source community, are sick of your shit. We're sick of you making outrageous claims, We're sick of you trying to take from us what we created. We're sick of you and your illegal buisness practices. And most of all, we're sick of you making money off this whole damn thing. Best watch your back boy, you're now at the top of our shit list.
Regards,
pissed off programmer
So if it was SGI that inserted the code, why is it, again, that they're suing IBM?
Initially, wasn't the SCO party line that IBM took AIX code and contributed it to Linux?
I respectfully suggest to Open Source developers that this is a far better use of your collective resources and abilities than to defend and justify flawed intellectual property policies that are out of sync with the needs of enterprise computing customers.
Doesn't that say it all? We need to pander the the enterprise computing customer. Hobbyists need not apply.
... and yet, That is basically what SCO is trying to do to Linux. They are trying to execute a legal DOS against Open Source (and by legal, I mean "using legal tools", not that what they are doing is itself legal) That has to be one of their better super-hypocritical statements of the month (not that they don't have plenty of those either)
There is nothing so silly as other peoples traditions, and nothing so sacred as our own.
you forget BILLalzebub has a fight with archangel Linus :-D
We played dungeons and dragons for 3 hours.....then i was slain by an elf
The developer at SGI stripped BSD copyright information. The code without the proper copyright information does not belong in the Linux Kernel. The code with the copyright information is fine.
Please note: This has nothing to do with Darth McBride.
Get a free ipod.
You are a liar, a fraud, and a thief.
You are a liar (if in nothing else) in deliberately misquoting Bruce Perens' analysis of the memory allocation routines which SGI contributed to Linux. Bruce Perens clearly did not say (as you claim he did) that we had allowed '...Unix System V code that "didn't belong in Linux" to end up in the Linux kernel' (my emphasis). He nowhere agreed that this was System V code.
You are a fraud in that you you claim that these routines are your company's property. They are not property, and they are not yours. They aren't yours, they weren't SGI's, they weren't AT&T's. You cannot inherit from others that which they do not own.
Algorithms for allocating memory have been developed over a period of over half a century by software developers studying and improving on one another's code. No implementation of these algorithms exists in isolation; none is fresh hewn from virgin intellectual territory. Improvements are incremental and have largely developed in an open and collegiate environment. Linux may, indeed, have learned some things from UNIX[tm]; but UNIX in its turn got the algorithms from MULTICS, TRIPOS, CPL and others lost even further in the mists of time. You cannot simply stop this process at an arbitrary point and say 'now this is property'. It is not property, it's a commons, a commons tilled and tended by many hands, to bring it to the state it is today.
And so, Sir, lastly, I say you are a thief. You are a thief in that you seek to enclose commons, to deprive the community of the rightful fruits of its labours over many decades, to make property what is not, never was, and never could be property. To steal our work and sell it back to us.
Sincerely
Simon Brooke
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
Open Source leader Eric Raymond was quoted as saying that he was contacted by the perpetrator and that "he's one of us." To Mr Raymond's partial credit, he asked the attacker to stop. However, he has yet to disclose the identity of the perpetrator so that justice can be done.
Just because the perpetrator allegedly contacted Eric Raymond, it doesn't mean that Eric knows who it is and is, as Mr McBride is charging, covering for the perpetrator.
[snip already rebutted points in other posts]
If the Open Source community wants its products to be accepted by enterprise companies, the community itself must follow the rules and procedures that govern mainstream society. This is what global corporations will require. And it is these customers who will determine the ultimate fate of Open Source - not SCO, not IBM, and not Open Source leaders.
The Open Source community doesn't want its products to be accepted by enterprise companies, enterprise companies are the ones that want the benefits of Open Source. It is the enterprise companies and their partners that are contributing as they can see it's ultimately in their own interest. There is no fate of Open Source being decided here, Mr McBride is vastly over-estimating the importance of his actions.
Rather than ignore or challenge copyright laws, Open Source developers will advance their cause by respecting the rules of law that built our society into what it is today.
-1 Flamebait. No-one has ignored or challenged copyright laws, as no law has proven to be broken.
Phillip.
Property for sale in Nice, France
As you quote, McBride claims that 'Eric Raymond was quoted as saying that he was contacted by the perpetrator and that "he's one of us."'
What McBride is saying is that Raymond knows the perpretrator, hasn't contacted the authorities with this information, and that as such he is implicitely supporting the criminal activity while denouncing it in public. That is a specific claim by McBride.
Is it true? McBride doesn't quote Raymond directly or provide source material to back his claim up. I haven't seen a single statement by Raymond claiming to know the perpetrator. Can anyone verify this claim and point to a printed source? If not, I'd say McBride is - once again - full of shit. --M
A memo to a higher office
Open letter to the powers-that-be
To a god, a king, a head of state
A captain of industry
To the movers and the shakers --
Can't everybody see?
It ought to be second nature --
I mean, the places where we live!
Let's talk about this sensibly --
We're not insensitive
I know progress has no patience --
But something's got to give
I know you're different --
You know I'm the same
We're both too busy
To be taking the blame
I'd like some changes
But you don't have the time
We can't go on thinking
It's a victimless crime
No one is blameless
But we're all without shame
We fight the fire --
While we're
Feeding the flames
Folks have got to make choices --
And choices got to have voices
Folks are basically decent
Conventional wisdom would say
Well, we read about
The exceptions
In the papers every day
It ought to be second nature --
At least, that's what I feel
"Now I lay me down in Dreamland" --
I know perfect's not for real
I thought we might get closer --
But I'm ready to make a deal
Today is different
And tomorrow the same
It's hard to take the world
The way that it came
Too many rapids
Keep us sweeping along
Too many captains
Keep on steering us wrong
It's hard to take the heat --
It's hard to lay blame
To fight the fire --
While we're
Feeding the flames
Neil Peart - Second Nature
McBride is technically correct, although misleading. According to Perens (via the second link in the slashdot blurb) "It is included in code copyrighed by AT&T and released as Open Source under the BSD license by Caldera, the company that now calls itself SCO."
To sum up, the code in question is owned by SCO, but using said code in Linux is permissable under the license terms by which the code was released. The "crime" here was that the SGI developer stripped the copyright notice.
Remember that under virtually all open source license agreements, the code continues to be owned by the copyright holder, but a nearly unlimited license to use, distribute, and create derivative works is granted to the public.
Further, the SCO Group is open to ideas of working with the Open Source community to monetize software technology and its underlying intellectual property for all contributors, not just SCO. (Emphasis added.)
Great! Then you'll be donating proceeds from the IBM lawsuit to the Open Source Initiative?
My point, even if SCO is right, they are dead. They have already alienated themselves from the industry. People truly HATE SCO. Also, interesting. SCO is using Linux on their web site because SCO Unix sucks. Linux is better and has a future -- while SCO Unix is basically extinct. Notice how SCO's revenew stream is no longer software based, but letigation based.
Almost scary how much history repeats itself. SCO is the next SEAware. Don't by their stock, don't buy their licenses, don't by anything from them. Your purchase is only as good as the company you buy it from. What are your F*ckedCompany estimates for SCO?
SPAM solution made easy: 1 spammer, 5 cords of rope, 5 hourses, and fireworks. Be creative.
Stupid ESR, he should have kept his mouth shut about all this.
You are all very, very flawed. SCO rules, and we want to work with you [/sarcasm].
"I don't think it's selfish, to eat defenseless shellfish." -NOFX
In copyright law, ownership cannot be transferred without express, written authority of a copyright holder. Some have claimed that, because SCO software code was present in software distributed under the GPL, SCO has forfeited its rights to this code. Not so - SCO never gave permission, or granted rights, for this to happen.
They included the GPL with their kernel. It should be "express written authority", unless the entire GPL is invalid. However, they accepted the GPL. Now one sees why they are going against the GPL....
Transfer of copyright ownership without express written authority of all proper parties is null and void.
He's a footnote. Specifically, to the next printing of this book.
http://tinyurl.com/mq3t
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
Dear Open sores users, please make your software less painful. As you can see, this is the dreadful consequences of the software. With stuff like the dreadful gtk file dialog, shitty fonts and "pretty gay perversions", linux deserves what it gets! Replace the daemon in takeittux.jpg with DMcB!
When I first started working on an OpenMP extension to gcc, I bristled at the FSF copyright assignment process.
I was wrong. I now see the value in FSF copyright assignments, which create a paper trail for documenting contributions to free software.
While the SCO attack dogs are extortionists, their greedy actions have shown weaknesses in the free-wheeling process of Linux development.
The "free" and "open" software communities can argue, until they are blue in the face, about the validity of copyrights, patents, trademarks, and other forms of owning ideas. Under existing law and practice, however, those concepts do exist, with the weight of law and tradition behind them -- and ignoring that reality is foolhardy.
Think of copyright assignment as akin to virus protection. I shouldn't have to protect myself against malicious software, but I am wise to do so. By the same principle, tracking contributions to the kernel is excellent protection from the desperate shakedown tactics of a company like SCO.
All about me
It wouldn't be Open Source then, would it? We might as well shut SourceForge down and start a software company...
no way!
How to Destroy Angels II
It contains such juicy tidbits like:
In the long term, the financial stability of software vendors and the legality of their software products are more important to enterprise customers than free software.I think the enterprises customers can speak for themselves on this matter, and they clearly have spoken...
In enterprise installations, it is customary for the customer to be charged an additional 15% of whatever they payed for the software each year for maintenance. (which ends up being about 13% of the total).
Let's take a theoretical enterprise customer who owns 12,428 computers (you'll see the reason for the oddball number in a moment). Now, if they just spent $700 per client on software, plus an additional 15% on maintenance, they've spent about 10 million in total. Now let's assume that the client software was free, but the maintenance stays the same, then the company has gone from spending 10 million, to ~1.3 million. Now let's suppose that someone at this company likes round numbers, so they take an additional .7 million and hire 10 people (at a nice $70k/position). The company has just saved 8 million dollars (!!!), and now has an additional team of 10 developers whose sole job is to make sure that the client software works best in their environments... The customer doesn't have to re-release this code, because they're not selling it, so no liability for them. And even if they decide to (which we hope they will), it's not part of their product line, so they're not directly helping their competitors...
Face it, McBride, enterprise customers are the ones for whom it makes the most sense to go to free software, and to not put all of their eggs in one basket (software company).
The reason the Darl McBride's of the world don't like Open Source is it takes large amounts of money that went to a single company, where it could be nicely controlled and funneled to the top of the hierarchy (CEOs and the like), and instead distributes it in smaller amounts, spread out, and only to the people who can get the work done.
The large corporations of the world are spending this money anyway, and Open Source is just a way for the doers (developers, admins, e.g. instead of deciders/managers) to take a share.
I know it sounds awfully corny, but in a society that's doing it's best to recreate nobility and privilege, open source is way of taking some power back for the people. The cathedral creates centralization of power and wealth, which lead to class hierarchies. The bazaar distributes power, which leads to an educated and informed participant, and higher standards of living for the majority.
Wasn't that a great scene where the Hollywood mogul wakes up
in bed with the horse's head foot warmer? So memorable.
By the way, does Darl McBride like horses?
Your Rights Online: The open source community's Open Letter to SCO
;)
Posted by CptnTaco on Tue September 09, 08:21 AM
from the now-pay-us dept.
redmond_r00lz writes "the open source community has posted an open letter to SCO There's some things the open source community mentions that I hadn't heard of yet, like "Up yours!".
GAAH! MY PRINTER IS ON FIRE!!! PUT IT OUT! PUT IT OUT!
An Open Letter from Darl McBride
"Want a BIG Business? Experience the results you've always wanted with a MASSIVE scientific breakthrough: SCO Will Actually Expand, Lengthen And Enlarge Your Business. 100% GUARANTEED! Best of all... There Are NO Agonizing Hanging Weights, NO Tough Exercises, NO Painful And Hard-To-Use Pumps, And There Is NO Dangerous Surgery Involved. WE GUARANTEE GENUINE LASTING RESULTS! SCO WILL WORK FOR YOU 100%, OR YOU GET 100% OF YOUR MONEY BACK! If YOU want to massively enlarge your business and experience big gains in only weeks,this may be the most important email you'll ever read. Here's why:
SCO has helped 1000's of men cope with and conquer serious business dysfunction issues. These painful problems include small business size and poor self-image, as well as lack of potency and premature authentication. To help these men our dedicated team of researchers has developed an amazing formula called SCO. SCO has carefully tested this unique new product so that it is fully doctor-approved. And, it is 100% guaranteed to work. It has been described as a true 'miracle cure', and we are now offering SCO in easy pill form to men everywhere. The SCO research team invites you now to experience this miracle for yourself. Now You Can Forget Forever the Pain,
Effort and Expense of Having a Large, Manly Business! Imagine for a moment how you will feel:
You'll radiate confidence and success whenever you enter a meeting, and other men will look at you with real envy.
But the best part is when you reveal your business in all your glory to the woman in your life. When she sees how massive and manly, how truly long and hard your business is, she will surrender and give you everything you have always wanted. The feeling of power is sensational, and the transactions are unbelievable!
As you show her your business she'll gasp as you dominate her. And the intense satisfaction you give her will be the BEST transaction she has ever had. I promise you, she will not be able to keep her hands off you when you give her everything she needs from a business. YOU Are In Total Command!
SCO will make you long-lasting and rock hard. You will never worry or be concerned about losing your connectivity or reaching authentication too fast. With SCO these problems are completely eliminated.
How SCO Works, and Exactly How it Will MASSIVELY ENLARGE YOUR BUSINESS
On either side of your business, you have two spongy areas called the firewalls. Authentication happens when you become excited, and the natural flow of data fills these servers. SCO has been scientifically developed to expand these servers and make them much larger. As it does this the transactions can hold more data than ever before.
The result? A MUCH larger business in thickness and length, and a rock solid authentication.
And all you have to do to experience these massive results is take SCO pills. That's it.
There is - No exercise required No surgery required No pumping required No painful stretching required
With SCO, it all happens easily and gently in just a few weeks. How BIG Can You Get? Realistically, you can grow up to 3 FULL INCHES IN LENGTH. This growth is so remarkable that it has been described by many as a real 'miracle'.
If you are ready to experience this amazing miracle for yourself, [you can make it happen with SCO, GUARANTEED]. Do YOU Want To Be Better Than 'Average'? According to medical records, the average business length is 6 inches. This is not based on where you are from, your race or nationality. This is true all over the world.
So if 6 inches is all you want to be or for some reason you want to be even smaller than this, please don't read any further.
But IF you want to be a lot better than average - UP TO 3 FULL INCHES BETTER - we can help. Remember, SCO is completely safe and completely private. It
Dear Open Source Community
Look over here. It's a monkey! Look at the cute little monkey!
[A few slashdotters' heads explode]
Ryan Fenton
"The most controversial issue in the information technology industry today is the ongoing battle over software copyrights and intellectual property. This battle is being fought largely between vendors who create and sell proprietary software, and the Open Source community"
Correction.
The most controversial issue in the information technology industry today is our contested claim that Linux, a open source OS, contains our Intellectual property.
Also, the open source community is not responsible for the DOS attack anymore than Mormons are responsible for Brigam Young abd his crazies slaughtering entire famlies of settlers at Mountain Meadows.
"The most controversial issue in the information technology industry today is the ongoing battle over software copyrights and intellectual property."
Mr McBride, can I suggest that you read some of the philosophy pages of the free software foundation? To summarise, the basic rule is the 'play nice with your neighbor' rule from kindergarten.
We don't want to battle you -- if you've been done by, the first thing we would like to do is rectify the situation.
Please let us know what code has been copied. We'll even go through the process of tracing it to its origins for you. We will gladly replace any code that you hold the copyright for that has been inappropriately contributed to Linux.
Thanks, and I hope there are no hard feelings.
I hereby claim any, and all "Hello World" code. Anyone violating my copyright must send me lots of money now. Thanks suckers!
He'll pretty much take anything at this point.
Sorry my bullshit sensor overloaded.
How come pizza delivery guys who never hurt anybody get bomb necklaces while this shithead doesn't?
Time for the 24 carat TNT bling blang, Darl!
AC have no sig.
the man talks bout a "business model".
he wants to have a "business model" with open-source. hmm ok.
i stopped reading that rant/whining after about 3 paragraphs. i sometimes get frustrated and feel like ranting and whining, but i normally stop short after 2 paragraphs, cos i tend to calm down and see sense by then. but i'm gonna write a bit now (cos i feel like)
where did they pick this guy up from?
intellectual propriety/property => overrated. i feel like im living int he 17th century and should have a master tell me things to do, and get a whippin if i don't. the same issue as taken up by the riaa. who do these two bodies represent? sco is supposed to represent a tech company, and as tech companies go, they are built by developers. and who are they going after? developers. and riaa would also make more sense when they start giving the artists a few more cents on a sale than to the various middle-men and companies.
there is a fundamental flaw not in the OS model, but in the model that prevails at this moment.
it's the same model that messed us all up in 1998 when the dotcoms crashed. but it seems like people (read management) like to stay the ostrich, and not open their minds up.
being in the computer-science field, i do not know any developer/tech person who would actually subscribe to this model of IP. everyone i know does their job cos they enjoy doing it, and they actually do it for a purpose.
if sco has a tech/developer team, i cannot see how they can bear to work under such people.
this is a flawed model that should be looked at - the running of one discipline by people from another. i don't see many programmers running the riaa, the movie industry, heck, most of the companies - let alone those in the tech industry.
you tell me - would u like to have a clown run u?
While you may wish that there was no need to worry about this - there is a need to worry about this. Like it or not, software patents exist and must be dealt with. As Cringely recently wrote:
Whether software can be patented or not, in the U.S., it IS patented, and expecting that some contrary decision will be shortly made and the planets rearranged in space is just folly. This is the difference between cynicism and realism.
That the contributor to, or a user of, a standard (or a kernel) may be ignorant of the existence of a patent won't change the facts of infrigement. Bottom line is that if you're running a business - or working for one - you need to be realistic. The risk of patents being designed into Open Source products would seem to be a HUGE risk for the entire open source community which is being ignored due to the cynicism about patents.
"Oh, it's too much bother."
"It costs too much money."
Tell it to the companies who ignored product safety rules.
The rookery needs to get with the program. Designing products, or developing standards, which infringe difficult to license patents is a no-no and it will kill your business.
Deal with it, or you will, most certainly, be dealt with.
Here's the Open Letter to the Open Source Community.
How many? The money has to run out sometime, and nobody with some commonsense is going to pay for your Linux license. How many companies would actually care to buy a Unix license to develop a Unix Operating System? SCO's targets for a next lawsuit are so rediculus, at one point they were going to go up against the U.S. goverment.
By prefacing his "no warranty" line with a patronizing "Open Source must become more mature" statement he gets two for one. We, of course, recognize this to be yet another of the blatiantly false bits of tripe that McBride has come to be known for. Despite its misleading "Open letter to the Open Source Community" title we are not the target audience for this; the target audience is the managers who make the financial decisions, but don't actually know what is going on. His careful implication that propriatary software is warranted may be effective with them...
Finally, we have his implication, again never explicitly stated, that Open Source is nothing more than a bunch of neo-hippies. Since most managerial types are politically conservative, and old enough to remember and dislike hippies, this implication is intended to strike at the average manager's prejudices. If he can get "Open Source == Damn Hippies" into many people's heads he believes, possibly rightly, that this will create a more hostile environment towards Open Source (much like the current "Open Souce == Communist" line of BS).
On a related note, I'll also point out a bit of his tripe that is aimed at us. His repeated implications that the Open Source concept were fine as long as we were working with toy systems, but now that we want to be grown ups we must adapt to the prevailing (propriatary) business model. This is intended specifically to cause doubt and fear in the Open Source community. Those who haven't given the isssue much thought may agree with this. It is nonesense. The Open Source model is a competitor to the Propriatary model. It is not inferior, and it may be superior. When Henry Ford invented the assembly line he did not think to himself "Well, I guess the Assembly Line was OK as a toy system, but now that I want to be a big boy I'd better switch over to the way everyone else does it." So too, must we refuse to be tricked into believing that the Open Source development model is for children. It is not. It is new, it is different, and it must compete in order to prove its superiority.
"Mission Accomplished" -- George W. Bush May 1, 2003
I'll start listening to SCO's advice on business models when thier CEOs stop selling all thier shares in the company.
echo $wittysigline;
Two letters: F and U
Because AOL and Intel are merging and if you forward this post to 1000 of your friends, Microsoft will send you a check for $543.21
--You will rephrase your request for me to go to hell. Goto statements are not acceptable programming constructs
Most enterprise customers have accepted Open Source because of unreasonable licensing obligations, and because Linux has proven to be more robust than most proprietary Unixes.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but shouldn't that be REASONABLE and not UNREASONABLE?
I'm still done reading only till this point. Posted this quickly incase people are copy/pasting it on other sites.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
The full text of the subpoena contains several provisions whereby Canopy may apply to withold documents. These provisions include the protection of privelege, litigation strategy, and trade secrets. I expect Canopy's lawyers to avail themselves of these provisions.
DROP TABLE SCO;
\q
Dang if only it was that easy.
~~ Behold the flying cow with a rail gun! ~~
Given the date and recent warnings, it could be that this tremendous cloud of FUD and BS eminating from SCO is the dreaded sabotage some have been expecting.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
It's not obvious to me that there are intellectual property problems in the current Linux software development model. In particular, there are no problems that don't exist in traditional closed source development either. If anything, Linux developers have a greater incentive not to copy code, because their work is available for public scrutiny. Had Microsoft, for example, "infringed" on your copyrights, you wouldn't even know about it!
You have misquoted Perens. He certainly did not claim that "Unix System V" code was in Linux. He said there was code in Linux that is "very similar" to System V, but has a traceable open-source origin:
The code is from Unix version 3, the oldest known version of Unix that still exists in machine-readable form. The complete source for that system can be found here on the net. In 2002, Caldera released this code as Open Source, under this license. Caldera is, of course, the company that now calls itself SCO. The license very clearly permits the Linux developers to use the code in question.
It is also worthy of note that this code was removed from the kernel for technical reasons before it was shown at SCOForum, and that, as part of the ia64 port, it was never even a part of any major commercial Linux distribution.
To arrive at a number remotely close to "one million lines", you must not be referring to Unix System V code itself. This is probably why you used the phrase "Unix System V protected code". You seem to think that NUMA, RCU, and JFS--technologies copyrighted and patented by IBM--somehow now belong to SCO thanks to your contract with IBM. IBM disputes this, of course.
In any event, your contract claims give you absolutely no right to collect license fees from end-users over these technologies. IBM holds the copyrights on the code; it was IBM's to give to Linux. If doing so breached IBM's contract with you, you are within your rights to seek damages from IBM. However, the contracts between SCO and IBM simply cannot apply to end-users who are not a party to the contracts.
Bruce Perens addresses this issue here, at the end of same the article from which you misquoted him earlier in your letter.
You draw some pretty serious conclusions from this one weak example of infringement: "In fact, this issue goes to the very heart of whether Open Source can be trusted as a development model for enterprise computing software." Closed source software is not immune from the same kinds of problems. Take a look at the recent patent lawsuits against Microsoft. Can Closed Source be trusted as a development model for enterprise computing software?
You mentioned that the aforementioned code copying issue damaged the open source community's credibility, but I find it telling that you didn't mention the other code copying example given at SCOForum. This example intended to show that SCO owns the Berkely Packet Filter code (which is, of course, part of BSD), and that an implementation of the BP
So the open source community needs to find a 'sustainable business model' eh Darl? I'd say that sounds like just the kind of problem you've been facing and failed to solve, hence your stupid lawsuits.
Actually what the open source community really needs right now is to be rid of you. Everything you touch is tainted and your presence is really not required. All you do is distract and stress hard working and commited people from continuing to serve their communities and the world community in general. Why - because you think you can make money out of it I guess.
Yes, some irresponsible person launced a DOS attack on your web site, it is understandable though really as you spend all of your time bad mouthing these community minded people and attempting to make them appear to be so much less than they are. As you will have noticed the community did manage to self police - the attacks stopped soon after a community leader requested it in a formal manner. You're idea of 'justice' is actually a desire for revenge, or perhaps a desire to make an example of someone, or even a desire to make some money out of someone??? As a Mormon I'm quite shocked you can display such unchristian morals.
Besides I think that in our attempt to reach 'justice' you have been repeatedly asked for examples of the code you are loudly and vocally claiming we stole from you. Perhaps justice might be served if you gave up that information so that we could begin to check it and look at way's of remedying any infractions that may have taken place. In this case your idea of justice appears to be that you make unsubstanciated claims and wild accusations and then demand payment in increacingly threatening ways. These claims are wild and unsubstanciated at least until such time as you give us the evidence - you have managed to find those millions of lines of code copied straight into the linux kernal, havent you? It smacks of a corporate protection racket to me - isn't there strict laws on racketeering that you may be in violation against - IANAL and I am not in the US so...
Let's face it SCO have been outdone by a bunch of amateurs (at least in _their_ eyes) and they don't like it. If the Linux model is so poor how come it's left your products for dust - not that they weren't obsolete before it's just the gap is widening. So their solution is to cry foul, 'they're cheating, they're freely shaing ideas and cooporating on a massive scale, hmm it must be illegal, think I'll go complain to mummy that it's unfair'.
Oh that's right, the development outstipped that of your propriatry products because we stole code from them - to do things thay never have and probably never will be able to do. Yup that's a logical step isn't it.
Perhaps a sustainable business model for you would be to go back to the linux vendor business - Caldera used to be well respected at that business and I believe was even making money out of it. Imagine that Darl, making money from actually selling a product rather than stealing from and threatening others to benefit from their hard work.
Of course I don't think there are many people who would buy anything from any company of yours again - you can't be trusted and shouldn't be encoraged. I hope that one of the results of this is that you are put in with the Enron and WorldCom executives and put somewhere that your deceptions and nasty political games can do no harm. In the meantime we'll continue to build a collective free and prosperous future, for ALL.
...you are talking about??? There aren't any programmers working for SCO from a long time now.....
1. No sig. 2. ???? 3. Profit!!!
"...casts a shadow over the entire Open Source movement and raises questions about whether Open Source is ready to take a central role in business computing."
Open Source already has a centeral role in buisness computing... Ask IBM...
On the other hand - SCO could vanish into thin air tommorow, and apart from the lawsuit, buisness computing would not even notice.
The copyright rules that underlie SCO's case are not disputable. They provide a solid foundation for any software development model, including Open Source. Rather than ignore or challenge copyright laws, Open Source developers will advance their cause by respecting the rules of law that built our society into what it is today.
If the grounds for SCOs case were indisputable would there not simply be some penalty leveled against IBM by the courts. If I remember right if you indisputably broke a law, the states prosecuting attorney should initiate suit. The very fact that this is going to trial says that Darls complaints ARE disputable. IBM respects the laws enough to continue actions confidently.
the misquoted computerwire story is also here:d ecade58 eb080256d8e0018bad3
http://www.cbronline.com/cbr_archive/fcbc3
Now what exactly is going on over there?
Ok, people, listen: 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? Free Speech? Free as in:"Say all the bullshit you like about anybody, even if it damages their reputation, and get away with it"? Your not serious, are you? Evident Lies that obstruct competing business _must_ be sanctioned somehow. No?
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 impression, I'm sorry to say that.
(this is a modfied repost of a comment on an earlier meta-article)
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
In the letter SCO states: two developments occurred that adversely affect the long-term credibility of the Open Source community pointing to the DoS attacks and the Bruce Perens "admission". I'm just wondering if SCO realizes that their long-term credibility as also been affected. How? They were once part of the UnitedLinux group, then all of a sudden attacking Open Source. And without any actual proof. -- the SCO Group is open to ideas of working with the Open Source community to monetize software technology and its underlying intellectual property for all contributors, not just SCO What about those who help with development of the kernel that aren't interested in monetizing software? Who exactly is SCO writing this letter to? Those who develop free and open source software? Or those who use said software and sell with support/added-value/etc? But if the Open Source community is to become a software developer for global corporations, respect for intellectual property is not optional--it is mandatory Open source does respect intellectual property. If not, everyone would hide the code, not letting anyone know if the code is stolen. How about just plain old respect being mandatory? The term "to become a software developer for global corporations" sounds a little too condescending to me. Working together, there are ways we can make sure this happens Show the code. Developers will fix it so it doesn't infringe on your IP if it does. I'm sorry, though, that SCO hasn't really shown this "working together" thing they're claiming. If they did believe this, they would have approached UnitedLinux members first and discuss the problems, before attacking Open Source in general.
I've never known Darl to take things out of context, so it must be true!
I FAILED IT!!!
Damn...
Who wants to be a Darl McBride? I think that Darl's SCO gig is going to end Real Soon Now. Does Darl know you've found his stash?
This Comment was generated with the Comment-O-Matic for SCO Stories.
StickMan
www.rageagainst.net
----
a paragraph-by-paragraph interpretation
of what he really meant to say
----
blah blah blah opening fluff
what we're doing is beneficial for us and for our secret
backer in Redmond because we want to spread as much fear about Linux
as possible before 90% of the people realize it is a superior product
to Windows for a cheaper price
whine whine whine, our website got DoS'd
keep attacking us and your company will fire you when they
find out that you're a Linux advocate because they will
just associate you with other open source "outlaws"
now I'm going to talk about how we paid people to put
System V code into Linux. normally these people would
be fired and sued, but we would rather go after Linux.
now I want to talk about why the Linux model can never
succeed because nobody can possibly ever be sure that
people with access to System V source won't sneakily
inject more into Linux. The Catch-22 here is that the
people auditing Linux code most likely don't have access
to AIX, IRIX, Solaris, etc source code. "Hey Bill, isn't
this great!! we're gonna make a fortune on this lawsuit!"
Now I'm going to spend 10 paragraphs explaining copyright
laws, but I will conveniently omit the reasons why we are
persuing the *product* of a crime rather than the people
that perpetrated the crime itself. Remember how I mentioned
the SGI programmer and how we know plenty more like him?
Well we're letting him off the hook because his criminal
acts have been the best thing that ever happened to SCO
and SCO's Redmond backer.
Finally I would like to end by justifying SCO's behavior
on the whole. Why should we go around suing the living daylights
out of everyone and spreading FUD about a platform
that was the result of countless volunteer hours and
philantropic contributions? Because we can! Isn't this great?
We live in a world where this behavior is not only allowed,
but also encouraged!! Now just wait until Bill^H^H^H we
pay off a few judges and lawmakers and have Linux officially
owned by SCO so at long last Windows^H^H^H we can prevail!
Sincerely,
Jerkoff McBride
A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God.
Dear Mr. McBride,
Dear Smoke Crack Operation,
out of a snippet of code that:
a. was very simplistic in the first place.
b. proven to be code that Linux developers had a right to anyway.
c. removed from Linux source by the time that SCO revealed it; NOT because it was someone else's IP, but because it was too ugly to be allowed to stay!
If this is the kind of IP that SCO is so determined to protect, it is completely obvious why no one was buying their product anymore, forcing them to come up with this lame legal scheme to generate revenue.
Since all of their arguments seem to be misdirection, how are we sure that their recent downtime isn't just more smoke and mirrors being used to shift the focus away from their total lack of solid arguments?
ACMD eht detaloiv evah uoy
'ancient unix' isn't valid for commercial purposes even though it was licensed under a BSD license.
Oops, SCO OpenUnix or whatever they call it this week just lost the X Window system, developed by MIT and released under a BSD-like license. Darn, the TCP/IP support written at Berkely and released under a BSD license isn't valid for commercial purposes either.
There seems to be more of this open source stuff around than SCO are aware of...
dammit lets just grab our torches and go out there, block any and all exits and burn SCO to the ground with all those swine inside. you do have a torch dont you? dont you? dammit i thought this was the dark ages again. no mother i haven't had my pills today yet.
Everybody denies I am a genius--but nobody ever called me one!
"a situation in which companies fear they may be next to suffer computer attacks if they take a business or legal position"
"Until these illegal attacks are brought under control, enterprise customers and mainstream society will become increasingly alienated from anyone associated with this type of behavior."
"IP sources should be checked to assure that copyright"
"resources and abilities than to defend and justify flawed intellectual property policies that are out of sync with the needs of enterprise computing customers."
"For several months SCO has been involved in a contentious legal case that we filed against IBM. What are the underlying intellectual property principles that have put SCO in a [...] legal case? I'd summarize them in this way:"
""Fair use" [...] does not justify commercial misappropriation."
"[...] because SCO software code was present in software distributed under the GPL, SCO has forfeited its rights to this code."
"SCO [...] gave permission, [...] granted rights, for this to happen."
"Transfer of copyright ownership without express written authority of all proper parties is null and void."
"Customers need to know that Open Source is legal and stable."
"Further, the SCO Group is open to ideas [...] to monetize software technology and its underlying intellectual property for [...] just SCO."
Every time SCO releases something, my boss somehow gets word of it and brings it in to me triumphantly like "Good thing we didn't adopt Linux, eh?"
SCO is having their intended effect...
The weaknesses are to do with "free speech" and the spreading of disinformation. In Europe regulation tends to be tighter, the constraints on expression of views by parties in litigation are much tighter, and the silencing of anyone making unsubstantiated allegations that adversely affect another business tends to be a fast track process. Hence the non-action in Germany.
McBride is also pushing carefully selected buttons by trying to show that (a) he has the force of a large legal firm behind him and (b) that his opponents are somehow liberal, pinko, anti-business, unpatriotic, you name it. He knows that his large opponents won't behave like that because they are too staid (IBM) or because they want to maintain an image of reliable business practice and stability (Red Hat, SuSE), while his small opponents won't get quoted in the business press. And knows that the story is too boring for 99% of the population, so investigative journalists on big papers won't be interested.
My suggestion? Make it worth someone's while. Someone with access to the necessary resources start a fund. Hire a decent PR company. There has got to be at least one that is perhaps not already working for large software companies and would like some real exposure. Place a one off full pager in the Wall Street Journal, or whatever the PR company recommends. No mention of Eric Raymond or other well known figures, just originating from an independent coming together of developers and systems implementers. See where it goes from there. Perhaps the ad could mention the number of contributors, ranked by size of company, at the bottom.
I would certainly put a few $ into such a scheme. Would anybody else?
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
People in power have always lied to those that they take power from. Even people without power lie to get out of trouble.
It's a story as old as humanity itself.
You can be shocked and/or appalled by this behavior, but it's quite natural to consider that systems that allow for lying and/or encourage hiding the truth for whatever reason (whether they be justified or not) have always existed and as long as they continue to exist people will continue to lie. If you want to change the behavior pattern, change the underlying system. Unfortunately noone seems to quite have worked out a flawless, utopian system involving human beings. Such systems are difficult to maintain ad infinitum.
"Finally, it is clear that the Open Source community needs a business model that is sustainable, if it is to grow beyond a part-time avocation into an enterprise-trusted development model."
Oh, you mean we should start filing lawsuits claiming that we never "consented" to releasing our IP under the GPL?
The more I read this letter the more I see the key flaw both the open source community and SCO is making.
SCO is referring to Open Source as a corporate entity, who needs a more solid IP model and a working business model in order to please their corporate customers who will decide their fate. In other words, in the SCO worldview OpenSource is simply some company and can be crushed. (visions of SCO suing thousands of devs/users/etc in an attempt to stop out a complete ant colony with a hammer)
I think this misconception is partially the fault of the open source community in the first place. "Open Source" is a term created to present free software in a way corporations would understand... i.e. to play by their rules. This makes it easier to sell to corporations and thus get funding, and has been remarkably successful. But there is a core problem there.
Free Software (for the sake of argument, let's say GPLed Software) does not exist to give corporations free stuff in order to hurt microsoft. It does not exist to develop a stronger IP policy. It's fate does not depend on the whims of "customers" - It's about the opposite of all of that. It's about killing IP and bringing back Intellectual Freedom. It's about providing the world with a solution -- without waiting on a single customer to pay/request it. It's about building the best software possible for the express goal of BUILDING THE BEST SOFTWARE POSSIBLE.
Open Source and Free Software is not a product. It is not a service. It is a natural resource. It is a conversation. It is what happens when a bunch of smart people get together and amuse each other. All these companies like Red Hat and SuSE and IBM are just bottling that resource and selling it to you - like bottled water. They may include some support or (more likely) some great water advertising - but it's still water.
There is a war going on - corporations have built up a huge wall of "IP" laws and such to try and trap people. Linux started as a trickle of water, and has grown so much that it essentially turned the wall into a dam. And it's still growing.
If you think water is a bad weapon to use against gigantic stones and rock walls, take a look at the grand canyon. Free Software (and Free Thought) will win - it's just a matter of time.
As quoted from Linuxworld feedback forum:
ProgrammerMan commented on 8 September 2003:
Darl, I see little benefit in publishing this letter. It says nothing new and does little or nothing to settle the disputes over the Linux kernel. It would appear to only stroke your ego and allow you to continue to spread false claims in an illegal attempt to scare Linux users into paying protection money for that which you refuse to document or prove.
About the denial of service attacks, this is likely the work of one irresponsible person, if indeed there was really ever an attack. It's rather curious that SCO didn't put out a press release or make any demands that it stop what would seem to be a significant attack. You also cannot demonize the entire open source community for the actions of one vigilante. I would think you'd realize by now that if SCO executives weren't constantly attacking and insulting open source developers in the media with their ongoing campaign of hype and sensationalism, people like this wouldn't have the motivation to do what they do.
Regarding the SGI code, you fail to mention that code improperly being contributed is just as likely to happen in closed source projects. In fact, it may be more likely to happen there since the code is secret and not visible to outsiders, so the temptation to take some code that you don't have the right to use may be stronger. Why would someone be foolish enough to intentionally contribute illegal code to an open source project that the entire world can view when they know the chance of getting caught is significantly higher?
About the flaws you repeatedly claim in the open source development process, there is no practical way to trace the origin of all source code, regardless of whether it's used in open or closed source. I think SCO's (and most software companies') own development process is equally flawed if not more so. There have been claims that there's GPL code in SCO's Linux Kernel Personality Layer. IBM claims you are infringing on at least four of their patents. Microsoft has recently been stung by patent lawsuits for SQL Server and Internet Explorer. There simply is no way to know that a project with millions of lines of code in it is all legal.
The claims of one million lines of infringing code are propsterous and blatant lies and you know it. There are only about 3.4 million lines of code in the entire 2.4.20 kernel. To claim that nearly all the code changes between the 2.2 and 2.4 kernel are illegal defies reality. Similar claims of over 800,000 lines of illegal SMP code are equally false.
I believe you are intentionally including IBM's code in the count, but this is incorrect. Blake Stowell admitted in a MozillaZine interview that IBM is the copyright owner of all the enterprise code they donated to Linux. Unless IBM's contract compels them to transfer the copyrights to SCO and they actually do so, IBM is the owner of this code and you have no right to claim any ability to restrict its use.
About your repeated use of the terms "intellectual property" and "IP," there is no such thing under the law. There are only copyrights, patents, trademarks and trade secrets. Your repeated use of these weasel words is a feeble attempt to make your claims look more credible. You need to state exactly what type of right you are claiming.
You show repeated instances of hypocrisy through your letter, and one of them is the claim that IBM and Linux vendors don't offer a warranty. Does SCO offer such a warranty on their OpenServer, UnixWare, or Sys V source code licenses? I didn't think so. Neither does Microsoft, as witnessed by the Timeline lawsuit over SQL Server. No company, even ones the size of IBM or Microsoft can afford such liability.
You also incorrectly refer to IBM as a Linux vendor, but they do not sell Linux. IBM partners with Red Hat and SuSE for
Then you accuse the open source community of not following the rule of law, yet SCO has violated the rights of others by continuing to d
Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity.
Well said, Simon. You've just earned a new friend :)
You can accomplish anything you set your mind to. The impossible just takes a little longer.
The most controversial issue in the information technology industry today is the ongoing battle over software copyrights and intellectual property. This battle is being fought largely between vendors who create and sell proprietary software, and the Open Source community. My company, the SCO Group, became a focus of this controversy when we filed a lawsuit against IBM alleging that SCO's proprietary Unix code has been illegally copied into the free Linux operating system. In doing this we angered some in the Open Source community by pointing out obvious intellectual property problems that exist in the current Linux software development model.
This debate about Open Source software is healthy and beneficial. It offers long-term benefits to the industry by addressing a new business model in advance of wide-scale adoption by customers. But in the last week of August two developments occurred that adversely affect the long-term credibility of the Open Source community, with the general public and with customers.
The first development followed another series of Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks on SCO, which took place two weeks ago. These were the second and third such attacks in four months and have prevented Web users from accessing our web site and doing business with SCO. There is no question about the affiliation of the attacker - Open Source leader Eric Raymond was quoted as saying that he was contacted by the perpetrator and that "he's one of us." To Mr Raymond's partial credit, he asked the attacker to stop. However, he has yet to disclose the identity of the perpetrator so that justice can be done.
No one can tolerate DDoS attacks and other kinds of attacks in this Information Age economy that relies so heavily on the Internet. Mr Raymond and the entire Open Source community need to aggressively help the industry police these types of crimes. If they fail to do so it casts a shadow over the entire Open Source movement and raises questions about whether Open Source is ready to take a central role in business computing. We cannot have a situation in which companies fear they may be next to suffer computer attacks if they take a business or legal position that angers the Open Source community. Until these illegal attacks are brought under control, enterprise customers and mainstream society will become increasingly alienated from anyone associated with this type of behavior.
The second development was an admission by Open Source leader Bruce Perens that UNIX System V code (owned by SCO) is, in fact, in Linux, and it shouldn't be there. Mr Perens stated that there is "an error in the Linux developer's process" which allowed Unix System V code that "didn't belong in Linux" to end up in the Linux kernel (source: ComputerWire, August 25, 2003). Mr Perens continued with a string of arguments to justify the "error in the Linux developer's process." However, nothing can change the fact that a Linux developer on the payroll of Silicon Graphics stripped copyright attributions from copyrighted System V code that was licensed to Silicon Graphics under strict conditions of use, and then contributed that source code to Linux as though it was clean code owned and controlled by SGI. This is a clear violation of SGI's contract and copyright obligations to SCO. We are currently working to try and resolve these issues with SGI.
This improper contribution of Unix code by SGI into Linux is one small example that reveals fundamental structural flaws in the Linux development process. In fact, this issue goes to the very heart of whether Open Source can be trusted as a development model for enterprise computing software. The intellectual property roots of Linux are obviously flawed at a systemic level under the current model. To date, we claim that more than one million lines of Unix System V protected code have been contributed to Linux through this model. The flaws inherent in the Linux process must be openly addressed and fixed.
At a minimum, IP sources should be checked to assure that copyri
Yo!, moron, hate to burst your bubble, but that indeed is the AT&T malloc routine, written by dmr while at Bell Labs, so it is copyright AT&T, but since Caldera (now SCO) owns those copyrights it is their IP. Caldera did release all 32V and before versions of UNIX source under a BSD-Style license, so a properly attributed version of that source would have been fine in Linux, but since the Copyright information was removed, it is not legal to be in the Linux source.
It has nothing to do with the algorithm of memory allocation, it has everything to do with a verbatim copy of the original dmr C malloc source (which is why it is a copyright issue not patent issue).
Thanks for playing, HAND!
I think we can show Mr. McBride the error of his ways in a close-up in person manner...
Dog is my co-pilot.
so this suggests
the gpl gives express permission to modify and reproduce freely...
is this a direct challenge on the strength of the gpl?
or is he claiming that sco never released this code under the gpl?
Use my userscript to add story images to Slashdot. There's no going back.
God and I hope they do. Because I couldn't say the things he does if I held a short position in SCO. Does the fact that he's the CEO somehow excuse him?
The interesting angle for me is the lawsuit. Can he just say he was defending himself in the "court of public opinion" regarging the lawsuit? Maybe he'll try to claim ignorance of the stock price?
For what it's worth, that statement by Darl is true, btw. Completely true. Perens stated that System V code is in Linux. He stated it shouldn't have been there. Darl just left out the part about it being old System V code that was taken from BSD, making the "taking" legal. He also left out the part about it sucking, which was why it "shouldn't have been there."
I don't know why you guys don't like him. ;)
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
"You have also taken Mr. Peren's statements completely and egregiously out of context."
Shouldn't that be Mr. Perens' ?
Otherwise looks good to me.
Am I the only person that whenever I look at licenses or think about how to license a piece of code thinks "damn, why can't I just say 'use common sense'?"
Everyone is so concerned with parsing out every detail of every license, I so wish I lived in a sane world where I could say "This is Free Software" and not have to explain to every cheating idiot al the details of what is and is not allowed.
License are a legal matter, and the legal system works because everything is interpretable, but we have gotten to the point where they are infecting technical issues. Technology works and science works because it is rock solid. When one writes a web browser one does not try to interpret the HTML standard to squeeze every advantage out of it. You simply try to be as true to it as possible. Why oh why do we have a society where we can't do that with licensing.
I want to see a study of what percentage of time or Free or OS projects are spent parsing, choosing, explaining, and debating licenses.
BTW- this is precisely the reason that Debian has a totally seperate mailing list for legal issues, and 99% of the time anything that belongs there which is posted to another list will be told to "ask debian-legal" - because those that don't want to answer, or have the expertise to answer such questions won't bother.
Legal Style
"It is easier for some in the Open Source community to fire off a "rant" than to sit across a negotiation table"
(See how I used Darl's actual words, in the order that he wrote them, without changing the context or meaning?)
Hey Darl, what's to "negotiate"? What, exactly do you think that we want from you? What can you offer us? Binary runtime licenses for code that you chose to release and sell under the GPL?
You have no case, nothing to offer, nothing to bargain with. So here's my negotiating position: I'll stop using Linux if you let yourself get assraped by a rabid donkey.
Go ahead and quote this as a threat from the "open source community" (can you point at the open source community? Do you see them in the courtroom? Where do we live? What's our stock code?). Bleat about being forced to file an Anti Donkey (Rabid) Raping (Ass, In The) restraining order against all donkeys because of the threat. Sue the Catholic Church for ten trillion dollars because there's a donkey in the nativity. Knock yourself out.
Sweet Jesus, I see your stock is up again. I have to admit, for a man with the intellect and integrity of a lump of earwax, you really do know how to fleece greedy, ignorant speculators.
Gaa, I'm done with it. It's gone from amusing, to irritating, back to amusing again. We all know that you're going to (illegally) dump and run before IBM get a chance to kick your donkey-cum dribbling ass round a courtroom, and it's only going to be the speculators that get screwed, but could you do us a favour and get on with it, because the joke is wearing a little thin.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Gentlemen, even if the code is contaminated, it is easily cleaned up.
Now that it is written and the operation and dependencies quite clear, a software specification can be written and turned over to an eager Open Source programmer having no contact with UNIX and anxious to make his bones as a rescuer of Linux.
Each module can be rewritten and tested quite easily and the results incorporated into a new, squeaky clean, copyright infringement-free Linux.
The reason SCO is not providing any details, such as which modules of code in particular they are worried about, is because they know it will be trivial to sanitize the code. If continuing infringement is eliminated prior to trial, there will be much, much less jury interest in making a substantial award, and NO interest in enjoining all distribution of Linux.
From extremely close-up experience, I can tell you that this sort of "avoid-the-details-and-concentrate-on the-big-picture" approach proved fatal to Apple in their historic look-and-feel copyright infringement suit against Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard. When the Apple suit finally finished, the only infringing novel features of the Microsoft software were so small they were easily replaced.
And that is why Microsoft dropped their early round garbage can and replaced it with a square office-type trashbasket.
Apparently we slashdotted Linuxworld pretty heavily-- it took me two hours or so of attempts to finally get to the text. For those who are having similar problems, here it is.
The most controversial issue in the information technology industry today is the ongoing battle over software copyrights and intellectual property. This battle is being fought largely between vendors who create and sell proprietary software, and the Open Source community. My company, the SCO Group, became a focus of this controversy when we filed a lawsuit against IBM alleging that SCO's proprietary Unix code has been illegally copied into the free Linux operating system. In doing this we angered some in the Open Source community by pointing out obvious intellectual property problems that exist in the current Linux software development model.
This debate about Open Source software is healthy and beneficial. It offers long-term benefits to the industry by addressing a new business model in advance of wide-scale adoption by customers. But in the last week of August two developments occurred that adversely affect the long-term credibility of the Open Source community, with the general public and with customers.
The first development followed another series of Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks on SCO, which took place two weeks ago. These were the second and third such attacks in four months and have prevented Web users from accessing our web site and doing business with SCO. There is no question about the affiliation of the attacker - Open Source leader Eric Raymond was quoted as saying that he was contacted by the perpetrator and that "he's one of us." To Mr Raymond's partial credit, he asked the attacker to stop. However, he has yet to disclose the identity of the perpetrator so that justice can be done.
No one can tolerate DDoS attacks and other kinds of attacks in this Information Age economy that relies so heavily on the Internet. Mr Raymond and the entire Open Source community need to aggressively help the industry police these types of crimes. If they fail to do so it casts a shadow over the entire Open Source movement and raises questions about whether Open Source is ready to take a central role in business computing. We cannot have a situation in which companies fear they may be next to suffer computer attacks if they take a business or legal position that angers the Open Source community. Until these illegal attacks are brought under control, enterprise customers and mainstream society will become increasingly alienated from anyone associated with this type of behavior.
The second development was an admission by Open Source leader Bruce Perens that UNIX System V code (owned by SCO) is, in fact, in Linux, and it shouldn't be there. Mr Perens stated that there is "an error in the Linux developer's process" which allowed Unix System V code that "didn't belong in Linux" to end up in the Linux kernel (source: ComputerWire, August 25, 2003). Mr Perens continued with a string of arguments to justify the "error in the Linux developer's process." However, nothing can change the fact that a Linux developer on the payroll of Silicon Graphics stripped copyright attributions from copyrighted System V code that was licensed to Silicon Graphics under strict conditions of use, and then contributed that source code to Linux as though it was clean code owned and controlled by SGI. This is a clear violation of SGI's contract and copyright obligations to SCO. We are currently working to try and resolve these issues with SGI.
This improper contribution of Unix code by SGI into Linux is one small example that reveals fundamental structural flaws in the Linux development process. In fact, this issue goes to the very heart of whether Open Source can be trusted as a development model for enterprise computing software. The intellectual property roots of Linux are obviously flawed at a systemic level under the current model. To date, we claim that more than one million lines of Unix System V protected code have been contr
Allegedly real newspaper headline from 1998:
Man Struck by Lightning Faces Battery Charge
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/1997/Nov9 7/scopr.asp
REDMOND, Wash.-November 24, 1997 - Microsoft Corporation today applauded the decision of the European Commission to close the file and take no further action on a dispute between Microsoft and Santa Cruz Operation (SCO) involving a 1987 contract. The Commission's decision follows progress by Microsoft and SCO to resolve a number of commercial issues related to the contract, and upholds Microsoft's right to receive royalty payments from SCO if software code developed by Microsoft is used in SCO's UNIX products.
This letter is an obvious sham. It's really not directed to the Open Source community at all, it's meant to reassure the fools who think that there may actually be some basis to SCO's claims. The object is to just keep the pump'n dump going until their day in court finally ends it all.
At a minimum, IP sources should be checked to assure that copyright contributors have the authority to transfer copyrights in the code contributed to Open Source. This is just basic due diligence that governs every other part of corporate dealings.
OK, so what exactly is due diligence in software development? I would assume that it boils down to a few simple things:
1. Checking for license compatibility with all contributed code that is known to be copyrighted.
2. Removing on request any code which was not known to be copyrighted and license-incompatible at the time of contribution, but is later discovered to be, upon reasonable proof.
3. Admonishing contributors who non-negligently contribute such coprighted and license-incompatible code.
4. Barring contributors who negligently (or worse) contribute such copyrighted and license-incompatible code.
I am assuming that those are pretty much the standards employed by commercial software vendors, and I would assume that they are the same standards followed by the Linux kernel development process. Certainly the willingness to remove any offending code that is brought to light is well documented in the responses from the kernel keepers.
These standards seem to be the standards employed by many of the resellers of IP on the web, such as iTunes, MP3.com, eBay, etc.
So where lies the problem Mr. McBride? Tell us what your gripe is and we'll remove it. The Linux kernel code is published for all to see (including by your own company) - if there's a problem, identify it. Surely you are not supposing that there was criminal intent in the inclusion of this code, and from the above it appears that due diligence has been exercised. As an alternative, why don't you put a sock in it?
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
From what I can see, SCO did no work on UNIX. Leastwise the goddamn thing hadn't changed noticably from the first time I used it in the late '80's and the last time I used it in the late '90's. Ok, none is an exaggeration but they (And the other commercial UNIX vendors, I might add) did such an embarassing job with their "Professional Developers" and their millions of dollars in R&D funds that a bunch of amaateurs working on cast off hardware blew by them and advanced the technology to about where it should be in 5 short years.
And now those companies want to steal that work via a quirk in the legal process? It's not just SCO either. IBM's acting like Linux is their baby. Sun's acting like Mad Hatter was entirely their idea. I bet when it comes out it looks exactly like Gnome. Just like Ximan's "product." What? Evolution? X-Emacs VM's a better mail client. And let's not forget that Microsoft has also benefitted from the original open source process; I've seen a lot of BSD copyrights in things like their TCP/IP stack in days gone by, and they claimed (afterwards) to have "invented" the Internet. Them and Al Gore...
And it seems to me that if any problems are arising in our process, it's from that "professional" sector. Developers from IBM and SGI stripping copyright notices and inserting the code in the code base? What, exactly, the fuck is up with that? And the UNIX family tree is already twistier than the ones you find in Podunk, Alabama. There's been so much inbreeding now that any judge trying to sort out the copyright issues is likely to have a stroke from the complexity of it all.
So that's the Industry's dirty little secret. All that shiny technology that they like to show everyone... was either directly stolen from or was built on top the work of a bunch of "amateurs" who were largely working on home made computers they built in their garages. All those millions in R&D funds, all those "professional" programmers with their "degrees" and their "certifications"... can do great things... once the amateurs have done their work for them.
I guarantee you that if SCO wins their case and the judge grants them rights to all the code developed to date by the open source community, that code would not change noticably ever again. It'd still be Gnome, 2 decades from now, while Microsoft is busy working on their spiffy neuro-synaptic user interfaces that they stole from the MIT Wearable Computers lab.
Yeah, maybe "stole" was too strong a word too, but they take the work and say "look over there!" (more or less) while the copyright notices show. It's not like they draw attention to them, or thank the original authors. A lot of people in the community do it for the recognition, and a lot of companies try to minimize the amount of recognition they award because that would expose the Industry's dirty little secret.
That's how it seems to me.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Darl seems to think the Open Source Community could benefit by getting Linux into industry? I'd say industry could benefit by getting into Linux.
Here is something very interesting for you SCO followers. It's interesting to note that SCO have annotated the unix family tree that I posted here.
You can see their L33t photoshop work here
Whats interesting is they claim they "own" Unics,
that UNIX TSS is the parent to OpenServer and that SCO Linux is older than original Linux!For a start i wouldnt say the levenez tree is anything near an official unix family tree, more of a best estimate in some cases. I wonder if they got permission from him to use it?
pass me the crack pipe!
Well, unless someone makes a patch to put in the BSD attribution (if there was one in the first place that is).
Don't respond to this letter, you fools!! It's a trap. You'll all be getting $600 invoices for creating derivative works if you do.
As I have some software to write, there is little time for a reply.
But the largest battle over intellectual property is not, as McBride states, between commercial vendors and the open source community, but between commercial vendors and software pirates - those people who make binary copies of commercial software.
McBride tries to lure us into thinking, he is doing everyone a favor here. No, he is not.
Unless he produces more evidence to convince me otherwise, it seems that the real issue is if IBM has violated a licence granted by SCO. If so, it is SCO's good right to sue IBM, and if it shows that the breach of contract has caused massive damage to SCO's revenue then IBM will have to reach deeeeep into their pockets.
But it would be prudent to show the Linux community which pieces of SCO code are in the product, so that they can stop using them if they would not like a licence.
Excuse me, but holy crap, this is like someone says: "You are using stolen goods. You must pay for them!" "Which good is it, I will gladly return it." "We can't say. Pay up!"
Most of what I have has been payed by my work for commercial, closed source software. And I have used commercial implementations of UNIX Systems (A/UX, IRIX), for my own perverted entertainment. OpenSource remains no more than a hobby to me.
But SCO is not doing anyone in the "Closed Source Community" a favor. He is either funded by Microsoft, or completely out of his mind.
Alex
Like all the other people critical of SCO's actions, I am of course on IBM's payroll, but please don't tell anyone!
Absinthe makes the heart grow fonder
We are going about this the wrong way. We should set up a paypal account for a "keep Darl in crack" fund, even the press will not be able to ignore that.
The Law is an agreement between the members of a community. When the a 'Law', brakes the original agreement, and doesn't represent some people anymore, then it's useless, and it's no more a 'law', and it becomes a 'rule', that is just imposed to us by the government. In that case we are entitled to defend our rights and our freedom. Maybe to attack SCO's servers is not the wiser/smarter/better idea, but it's someones way to say NO (may be he feels that in that way a lot of people will lisent to him).
I think this bourgeois life has taken us to forgot that it's our responsibility to rule our lives, and that WE are the ones who implements Government, Law, Police, Money, etc.etc; and that those entities/things are just other agreements; and that if those agreements gets broken, it it time to make new ones.
WE, as part of society gived SCO the right to make a business.If they then try to betray society, and steal from us, we have the legitimate right to defend ourselves, each one in its own way.
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
The remark was made in a flippant offhand manner, and is unfair. I know MJ has been heavily mocked, but thank you for providing details of the actual syndrome he has - it's genuinely informative.
While tasteless humour can be very funny, I often find it very easy to misjudge the situation through my ironic distance from it, and become overly cruel without recognising the genuine sensitivities of others.
Thank you for keeping me in check.
Assuming that Canopy produces all the alleged evidence for SCO's claims and IBM gets it hands on it tomorrow, can IBM publish the material? Or could they at least disclose its contents?
Darl's position doesn't surprise me in the least. He sticks to his guns, true to the marketing and political antics of the SCO Group, drumming up news headlines and "branding" it's products through the elevated press. Given that litigation is what Canopy does as a business, Darl is the perfect spokesperson. He's a salesman, true to none but his paycheck.
His letter implies that the DDoS attack against SCO Group was a surprise; we know you're smarter than that, Darl. His letter implies that Bruce Perens "admitted" that Linux contains SCO Intellectual Property from SGI's IRIX, a derivative of Sys V UNIX, and by copyright license, property of SCO Group. Let's not forget that Darl is a Master of Ceremony; it's his job to discredit anyone and anything that stands in his way. This case is being tried in the eye of the public long before it ever reaches the court room floor. SCO Group has nothing to loose and everything to gain by being the bully.
SCO Groups claims are a sham, and Darl is its spokesman. Their back is against the wall, and the Open Source community is pressuring them to put up or ship out. Their products cannot compete with Public Domain, GPL, or hobby software, because they don't innovate. They're embarrassed and scared, so they're snapping at anything that gets within reach.
...someone needs to shoot this rabid dog and put it out of its misery.
assert(expired(knowledge));
I find it amusing (but not unexpected) that Darl uses such flawed logic and mudslinging to support his shakey arguments. He paints a picture that the OSS community as a whole has perpetrated the DDoS attacks on SCO's website. I'm surprised he didn't invoke the "T" word during his pleas for justice. He also makes a call for the OSS community to divert their attention to all the infringing code in Linux, yet SCO refuses to show the "million lines of infringing code" they claim is in Linux. Then he not so masterfully spins Bruce's words to mean something completely different thus creating the illusion [*rolls*...makes Will save to disbelieve] that Bruce actually admits to the veracity of their position.
How many points has SCO's stock gone up since that letter was posted and how many shares have SCO exec's divested themselves of?
I guess this qualifies as an urban legend, and I certainly would not treat it as factual. It predates me, but is still interesting.
Supposedly, IBM was building aa semiconductor fabricator in the late 60's/early 70's, but due to a recession they were 'slowing' the project and had a building shell, but no equipment. They filled the empty building with documents being subpoenaed by the feds for the antitrust case.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
The discussion further back in the thread suggests that McBride might very well know that ESR does not know the identity of the DDoS hacker.
McBride's statement, which may be widely passed along by the press, suggests that ESR condones the actions of someone who is committing a crime. This at least could tarnish his reputation, and may be tantamount to an accusation of aiding and abetting. As I recall the definition of libel, it encompasses making statements that you know to be false and that either accuse someone of a crime or significantly damage their reputation (IANAL).
Darl McBride deserves no mercy. If ESR chooses to seek legal action against him, and if he needs donations to pay attorney fees, I'm all set to write a check.
Always keep a sapphire in your mind
Mr. McBride: I have read your 'Open letter' to the Open Source Community, and have struggled to come up with an appropriate response. After much deliberation, I have found the perfect response:
/ /\ l
/ T \
\ *
l
yes, you are correct. This is my ass... because that is what I think of your FUD. After reading your FUD, please do not take this as an offer. Thank You
After reading through much of what is out there I have some interesting comments to make. In some respects, SCO boy is correct. The Linux community should do some due diligence to ensure that code committed to the kernel is IP free to avoid these issues in the future.
The mountains of code which SCO speaks of as being theres however are somewhat ambiguous so outside of anything that SCO can prove as being genuinely 'SCO IP', they should be countersued by both Linux vendors and users as is appropriate and allowable under the law. I do not doubt that SCO has some evidence which supports their case - and no Linux supporter should blanketly dismiss what they have said because they haven't seen any evidence. Whether or not that evidence is as compelling as the SCO Group thinks - well that's up to the judges and justices of the judicial system.
Unfortunately Mr. SCO, some of the other things you've said are slanderous and border on libel. Unless you can prove that the person who performed a DDoS on you was an Open Source supporter that was a representative of the Open Source community - then I suggest you offer an apology to the Linux community for accusing them of something you cannot prove. In addition, even if it was someone who supports open source - your gripe is with them, not the remaining hundreds of thousands who took no action against you. You cannot argue from the specific to the general - to even suggest that is a high level of ignorance on your part.
Finally it is insulting the way you want people to respect a contract with SCO yet you want to shrug off the GPL license which you used to distribute Caldera for many years. As an owner of several copies of Caldera Linux I have clearly seen that you have distributed software under this license. If your legal counsel was stupid enough to let you attach a contractual agreement to software which you sold and distributed with your express consent - then you need to find a new legal group as you have been misled. You agreed to the terms of the GPL by attaching your software into a codebase which you clearly knew was GPL, which you sold knowing it was GPL, and which removed a great many of the rights (though not all) that you had to the IP you associated with UNIX, Linux, whatever. This is just like chess, this is a move that you cannot take back and you will have to live with it.
While I certainly understand that you want to protect your IP, the Linux community and Open Source communities have a right to protect theirs. Anything you've comitted to theirs is now open and that is the nature of the contractual agreement you accepted when you started putting Linux on the shelf. Now you have several choices - to work with the Linux community to get this resolved or take this to court at which time you may find yourself sued through your own admission of contract violation with respect to the GPL and shipping copies of Caldera.
All you have done is awaken a powerful enemy - and fill it with terrible resolve. If Microsoft fears the Linux community and Open Source and its several thousand times your size - perhaps you should reevaluate who your friends and enemies are as without a doubt even if Linux has to be totally engineered to not use anything resembling any of your IP - no self respecting user, administrator, or evaluator will consider using anything associated with your brand as you have threatened them in the past and acted in bad faith. Your brand is now dead - and 'geeks' are reknown for having long memories and vendettas.
I think the CEOs of software companies are hoping the software business will become just like the music business, where the creators and consumers get shafted and all the profits go to the middleman.
Fortunately, I don't think the software industry will necessarily go that way. Software is valuable to its creator in and of itself; it doesn't need to be sold to create value (although it can be sold to create additional value). A CD is of less use to a musician; it must be sold before the creator gets much value from it. This difference will ensure that there will always be open source software.
There is another factor at play in this as well. A lot of companies that create proprietary software are outsourcing their development to India and other cheap countries. Pretty soon, the only development done in the U.S. will be open source. We should support American programmers, and use only open source software! In fact, if open source software were in wider use, there would be more demand for American programmers. With open source, there is plenty of generic code lying around and all that has to be done is customization for a particular business need. Outsourcing is really only good for the mechanical programming tasks, which are already done for you with open source development.
-- Pot is safer than Beer
Produce the goods Mr. McBride, or be quiet. You are becomming tiresome.
Never touch an Irish man's Guinness!@#
The number for sales queries in the UK is 0044 1707 226014. Politely tell the nice lady that you would like information about the SCO Linux licensing program sent out to you. Then tell her that you are currently using the product without a license, and could she please send a letter demanding payment.
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more, Or close the wall up with our American dead!
Shortly after the line you quote, he also says:
This reinforces the impression that the business model issues he is referring to in the quote in question involve the assertion that open source software is "legal" rather than the assertion that it works, or that it is support.I've got to say, though, that it took some re-reading to actually follow the attempt at logic in this part of the letter.
Darl is doing exactly what he's been doing the whole time. He has taken a great deal of what ESR and Bruce Perens have said out of context and twisted it around. Take a look at SCO's site for more examples of how they've done this with other Open Source and Free Software leaders.
Also, he seems to paint the DoS attack as something backed by the community. Tell me.. when an MS programmer writes a virus is this considered to be an attack from Microsoft? Or even all microsoft users?? Why, then should an attack from one person be considered an attack from the entire community?
The rest is just a restatement of SCO's weak claims.
GJC
Gregory Casamento
## Chief Maintainer for GNUstep
From the signature, it looks like this is a letter from Darl, rather than a letter from SCO. This could be the chance to stop this foolishness. Assuming that the point of this exercise is to get Darl (et al) money, and they're planning to suck as much out of the company and the stock market as possible and then leave the bankrupt company to deflect all the liability, it should be possible to stop them with lawsuits against the individual executives. This seems to be the first action taken by a SCO executive personally (as opposed to as a representative of SCO), and a great chance for ESR and Perens to sue someone who will have the money to cover legal bills at the end.
"What comes of litigation? Poverty and degradation to any community that will encourage it. Will it build cities, open farms, build railroads, erect telegraph lines and improve a country? It will not; but it will bring any community to ruin." -Brigham Young, JD 11:259.
All the tech-aware mormons I know are just as outraged about the SCOurge of McBride and his cronies as you are.
SCO still has programmers? I thought they fired them all and used the money to hire lawyers instead.
SCO is your friend. Trust SCO. Open source programmers must show respect. SCO says so, and SCO is your friend.
Open source programmers get lied about to the media, strangled in red tape, cheated, and occasionally accidentally sued. Being an open source programmer is fun and rewarding if they negotiate with SCO. SCO says so. Of course SCO is right!
SCO owns UNIX. Which parts? What's your security clearance, citizen? I'm sorry, but that information is not available at your clearance level. Serve SCO and perhaps you will one day be rewarded.
Remember - Stay Alert! Trust No One! Keep Your Licence Handy!
Analysis of SCO's Las Vegas Slide Show, http://perens.com/SCO/SCOSlideShow.html
... sharing none of the original source code, but carefully following the documentation of the Lab's product."
SCO's legal theory fails, because they ignore the fact that if a work doesn't contain some portion of SCO's copyrighted code, it is not a derived work.
the code regarding the supposed "obfuscated copying" was actually "a clean-room re-implementation
since bruce is active on slashdot (uid 3872),
it's only a matter of time before he responds to these allegations more directly,
both here and to mcbride.
Use my userscript to add story images to Slashdot. There's no going back.
This just popped into my e-mail.
r ch
Dear SCO Customer,
Thank you for your inquiry to SCO Support Services, (The SCO Group,
formerly Caldera International). SCO offers several options which
enable you to obtain support services. Please read the information
below to view your options.
For SCO customers with an active Support Service Agreement, please
access your Online Service Manager account to transmit your request,
or send your inquiry to the support email address that is provided
to you in your SCO Technical Support package literature.
SCO Self-Help - Your SCO Installation Support Resource
SCO provides extensive Self-Help support services on all SCO products
that include installation and configuration support solutions through
an easy-to-use single web view. The Self-Help site features SCO's
Installation Knowledge Center, Certified and Compatible Hardware,
Software Download, Licensing and Registration information, and
much more.
The Self-Help web site is located at:
http://www.sco.com/support/self_help.html
SCO customers, who have purchased products bundled with support, or
for more information on direct SCO Support Services, please refer to
the following link for details:
http://www.sco.com/support/programs/
In United States and Canada phone 1-800-726-8649 In Korea phone
82-2569-7999 In Japan phone 03-37979050 In Latin American countries,
visit http://la.sco.com/ In Europe, Middle East, India, Africa and
Pacific Rim phone +44(0) 1923 816344
Support service assistance may also be obtained via SCO Partners. Our
network of Resellers and Distributors would be pleased to assist you
with your service needs. Visit Partner Locator to find an SCO Partner
nearest you.
http://wdb1.sco.com/sdir_web/owa/ptrLocator.sea
Here's proof, from bruce himself, that there is indeed SCO's closed sourced copyrighted code in linux. What if this was SCO using GPL'd code without distributing the source? lusers would be out for blood, threatening lawsuits, doing everything you can to stop the injustice of not providing the source. But yet when linux breaks the rules, you guys sing a different tune. SCO is not doing anything the linux community wouldn't do to protect it's IP. For you (slashdot and linux community in genereal) not to be as upset as SCO, is a glaring example of your hypocrisy.
Open Source leader Eric Raymond was quoted as saying that he was contacted by the perpetrator and that "he's one of us."
..." and that's certainly plausible whatever the truth is.
I believe what he said was that he was contacted by someone who claimed to know the perpetrator. And that this person convinced him that the third (unknown) party was indeed the perpetrator.
I'd need to check back to be sure, but that's the way I remember the report. OTOH, he did only assert that "Eric Raymond was quoted as saying
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
At least we can see the code behind linux. What about all those software programs that you can't see the software?
:P
At least linux is open if you think that some of your code got misappropriated into it then you are at liberty to do something about it but what if you think windows or SCO UnixWare has your code in it? What can you do?
The only flaw the linux software development process has is that people can make unsupported allegations against it and start harassing users / the companies that invest into the future of it.
How much GPL'd code would you find in your software SCO? HUH SCO? HUH?
ok, so McBride claims that "over a million" lines were cribbed? I just ran through all the .c files in the 2.4.18 kernel source -- there are only 2.94 million lines total, including comments (but not including any header files, obviously, so about a wash). McBride is claiming that OVER A THIRD of the kernel has been ripped off from System V, while his company has been distributing Caldera Linux under the GPL for years? Sounds like pretty good fodder for them not taking "reasonable care" of their copyrighted material -- I mean, if over a third of it was ripped off as he claimed, it should have been pretty easy for SCO to spot, yes?
MOO;IANAL.
There used to be a picture linked here.
Miss O'Gara, could you do us the courtesy and explain who is going to police your DDoS attack? The shitstorm that is the FUD you have created surrounding Linux is denying many existing and potential adopters of the benefits open source has to offer.
In addition, what your company is doing (stock manipulation, defamatory statements that inhibit Linux solutions, and so on) is just as illegal.
How on earth can you cry for justice when you are engaging in injust acts yourself? Pot, meet kettle. Kettle, pot.
This nonsense with SCO gets more ridiculous every day. I cannot stand how amazingly childish this has become. The DDoS attacks on SCO are counter-productive insofar as they reinforce the idea SCO is proposing that open source consists of criminals. But of course, everything SCO has done from the get-go is childish and stupid.
Unfortunately, open source is the only lose in the long run.
Whoever is pulling SCO's strings (Microsoft I'd guess) wins. SCO goes out of business; you can't hurt the dead and they were terminally ill anyway. SCO execuatives walk away with bags of money. Lastly, the reputation of the open source ends up severely damaged in the minds of everyone who may have considered OSS solutions.
In short: fuck you SCO. Quite honestly, nobody should give a damn what happens to you or your intellectual property. Had you handled this rationally, bringing claims against IBM or SGI if in fact they violated your property, without the maelstrom of FUD, things would be different. Instead, you've waged a mudslinging campaign that hurts lots of people and makes you look like assholes.
No good can come of this except for a few already wealthy execs.
Join Tor today!
Never have I seen a more complete post that wasn't an actual article - this should be. Very nice job sir!
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
If something is stolen or copied from you, it's stolen
You are such a hypocrite. If this was a discussion of the RIAA you would sit there yelling about how "making a copy is not stealing" but when it comes to this topic you say the above.
You can't change your views depending on who your adversary is. You lose all credibility.
Retard
SCO seem to want to try their case in the press. Maybe they've watched Chicago too many times. They distort whatever case they have and deliberately misconstrue opposing statements. A farce. They need the publicity. First it was greenmail. Now, I don't see any exit strategy. Time to stop playing in their circus.
SCO don't have a case, lets not act as if they do. Time to stop worrying.
A really good view/break-down/rant on this letter can be found here
It is a very well written and quite thorough analysis.
(\(\
(^.^)
(")")
*This is the cute bunny virus, please copy this into your sig so it can spread
I just posted a similar thing to an individual post, but I think it's more appropriate to this thread
This is nothing new, it's just a repeat of the previous analysis of SCO's slides, but since a lot of people haven't read the whole article in question, they're just getting information from these partial posts people are making here and forming opinions based on that.
Please, everyone, look at the Original Article before posting. Or, if you don't want to register with computerwire, the article also posted on Yahoo. Perens is talking about the code snippets from the slides a couple weeks ago. Nothing new. He's talking about the code that was released into the public domain by Caldera.
SCO's including a partial quote from Perens without context. This is why partial quotes are dangerous. You get to see the included line, but not the context so it makes it look like someone said something completely different, which in this case is McBride's purpose.
So, read the original article from Perens, and read the Letter from McBride. And please, if you're going to make a post using a quote, make sure it represents the whole idea, otherwise it could end up meaning something else from what someone acutally said.
George, show us the weapons.
Darl, show us the source.
Everything - and I mean everything - else is bullshit.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Letter of response posted from Groklaw:
.
http://radio.weblogs.com/0120124/
-----
"D. Jeff Dionne commented on 8 September 2003:
"1. What a member of a community does is the responsibility of that individual. The actions of one person cannot be used to stigmatize a group (or any others at all). . .
"2. There is considerable evidence that there was in fact no DOS of SCO's machines. If this proves to be the case, SCO will have to be held accountable for it's allegations.
"3. SGI is on record that it's legal team went through the xfs sources to approve the release. The code in question is clean according to this audit... if it is not then that is a mistake. In any case, it was corrected, and the (appropriate, responsible) proceedures followed to insure that intellectual property of others was protected is a matter of public record. Stated another way, it can be clearly shown that the accepted industry process (code audit) was carried out and that it was carred out to respect the rights and property of others.
"4. Making allegations of not respecting intellectual property comes (at least) close to defamation. In light of 3, and knowing that SCO was a party (as all enterprise linux vendors were) to the very public work SGI did to contribute xfs to Linux, one has to hold SCO accountable for knowingly making such false and damaging statements.
"5. If there is code (for instance) in the SMP support which is SCO's property, that code is limited to the code itself. There is no legal theory that can be presented that will stand scrutiny that will allow you to claim 1m lines of code derived from it. Put another way, _calling_ a function cannot make the work that calls it a derived work in the general case or all programs would be a derived work of the platform they run on.
"6. Open Source and Free Software are not business models. They [are a] process and philosophy which is used to generate software for the benefit of everyone. Stated another way, they are designed to make the benefit of the development effort accrue to the public.
"7. There is no such thing as 'Free Open Source' The terms 'Free Software' and 'Open Source' are valid terms, however they are not interchangeable.
"8. SCO spent many years as a member of the Open Source community. It knows that the community hold property and the law in high regard and respects those laws. SCO also knows that the GPL relies on copyright. SCO knows this because lawers for another Canopy company examined the foundations of the GPL in depth and also offered GPL indemnity. This is known to Blake Stowell, who was involved in that effort.
"9. If the Open Source movement is based on anti-establisment principals, SCO must also be based on them because it was one of the first companies to be an 'Open Source' company. It contributed funding and engineering to the development of, and is partly responsible for, the state of the Open Source movement today.
"What SCO is doing is illegal. In the case of this letter, you have come very close to defaming myself and other Linux developers. Seek legal advice before posting such things, we will hold you accountable."
25. All documents concerning purchases of the substance known as "crack", by plantiff's employees.
By reading this sig, you agree to the terms of my sig license.
"This improper contribution of Unix code by SGI into Linux is one small example that reveals fundamental structural flaws in the Linux development process. In fact, this issue goes to the very heart of whether Open Source can be trusted as a development model for enterprise computing software."
What has been bothering me most about this whole fiasco is that SCO constantly calls the OSS model flawed because copy righted code May have been inserted into the LINUX kernel. There is no greater chance of copy righted code getting into LINUX than any other OS or Program. The only reason that SCO could have found the copy righted coded is because of the very nature of OSS. If LINUX was a proprietary OS they would never have a chance to see misappropriated code. They act like no as if no proprietary software company would ever violate a copy right.
Forgive me if I don't shed a tear for the bastards whenever their sites get knocked offline.
perl -e 'print $i=pack(c5, (41*2), sqrt(7056), (unpack(c,H)-2), oct(115), 10)'
I find it amusing that SCO hadn't picked on SGI until Perens mentioned them in passing. If they really have some sort of coherent investigation going on, one would think they would have picked up SGI on their own.
This letter seems to be Darl saying "oh no, press... coverage...failing...must...pump... stock...aaaagggghhhh..."
Do we really need to wait two years for trial to end this FUD?
-braddock
Hey, doesn't seem to hurting their stock any.
# SCO Group (NASDAQ SC:SCOX) Analyst Reports
17.47 1.09 / 6.66%
Can noone in this community get into the NDA evidence session with a hidden camera and get the evidence onto Freenet so we can take this case down?
Trial is not for a year and a half, and the uncertainty is SEVERELY hurting Linux.
You meant that Free Software is least likely to be affected.
Free Software is effected by programmers writing code and using free licenses. It is affected by many things, including slanderous press releases from dying companies.
This is not a "grammar flame". Correct grammar is not all that important. And only a complete troll would object to a "plagiarize" being spelled wrong. But if you're not sure of the difference between affecting and effecting, you probably mean affecting, and if you use effecting you might end up saying something totally different to what you meant.
This was a public service announcement
Somehow, I'm having a bit of a hard time seeing Linus Torvalds and Alan Cox in a big press event, shaking hands, celebrating the joyous awakening of Open Source powered by SCO. I mean really, who does he think he's fooling?
My biggest question in all of this is, who's to say someone didn't deliberately contribute supposidly IP code just to start this upheaval in the first place? What's the best way to take down an open source community? You can't buy them out, you can run them out of business... I'm sure competition would love to put their proprietary source code into Linux that would allow them to sue, and thereby ruin all the work that has been done to date, just to take out, what they realize, is the greatest threat to their business.
Should the court find that SCO is not the legitimate owner of the code fragments in question, we will be only too happy to honour and coordinate any of our customers requests to sue for harassment on their behalf.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Those routines are not "creative commons". The code fragment is COPIED EXACTLY COMMENTS AND ALL from SCO IP (emphasis mine).
Another SCO shill revealed!
Darl, if your intentions were truly sincere, you would not have tried - yet again - to mislead us. And to misquote Bruce Perens to do so... that, my little desert fiend, is unforgiveable.
This dog's mad... a Maddog!
Buford "Mad Dog" Tannen
The oldest version of this code we've found so far is in Donald Knuth's The Art of Computer Programming, published in 1968.
So the code can't have been legaly copied from there (it's copyright).
In this case Knuth has the deciding vote on how legal the use is. Has anyone asked him?
Even more, the code from "TAOCP" is likely written in pseudocode or MIX and while the pseudocode is likely to be protected by copyright, I'm not sure if a translation of it into C would be - as the algorithm may be the same, but the expression of it very, very different. Enough so that I suspect a patent might cover it, but copyright would not.
So SGI puts some code into the kernel with incorrect copyright notices and so SCO sues IBM.
it all makes sense now...
On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
I'm pretty sure this open letter is going to be followed by some "magnanimous" gesture on the part of SCO. Like deciding not to follow the case further in the 'interest of the community' or some such thing.
All the previous SCO statements have been openly confrontational but this was far more diplomatic. Still stupid but definitely diplomatic.
Bye Bye SCO. RIP.
Well, you know, all this commentary and rebuttal is great, but is ANY of it getting into things like The Wall Street Journal or The Financial Times? Cuz that's where SCO is waging its war of words. I fear that preaching to the choir isn't what's necessary here. Talking to the business folks is.
I'm not an actor, but I play one on TV.
I don't know what a beatnik is, but I sure know how hard it is to get a job when you're only 15. If I could get a job I would have one.
I love NetHack.
It wasn't until reading this letter that I realized that Open Source is, and always will be, more vulnerable to IP related legal abuse that closed source. Given the murky and dangerous status of IP law (at least in the US), this is a bad thing.
It should have been obvious that publically reviewable code can be proven to be infringing on a copyright or patent more easily than code which is kept secret.
On the other hand, Open Source is more secure from these lawsuits. It's very hard to extract money by suing OS creators. So most people won't bother unless they are trying to shutdown an OS project to protect their own products.
Will we see a continuous stream of these attacks on OS? I'm not worried about bogus claims, like those from SCO, so much as I'm worried about legally valid claims of infringement of software patents. Software patents may be bogus, but currently they are legally binding.
What if some judge decides to block distribution of RedHat until after all code infringing on MS's Start menu patents (putting it at bottom left, or whatever) has been removed?
plus-good, double-plus-good
If I was that programmer at SGI, I would definitely sue for slander/libel. It makes him/her look like they went and did it behind SGI's back. When in fact SGI had a press release and a post on their front page saying that the journaling file system was now available to Linux users. I don't see how one man or woman could have published the code, wrote a press release and updated the SGI's front page without anyone else in the company knowing about it. And like many other have said, the copyright didn't need to be removed because it wasn't originally there and it was SGI's product to give away, not SCO's.
[below is relevant info from the "open" letter]
"the fact that a Linux developer on the payroll of Silicon Graphics stripped copyright attributions from copyrighted System V code that was licensed to Silicon Graphics under strict conditions of use, and then contributed that source code to Linux as though it was clean code owned and controlled by SGI. This is a clear violation of SGI's contract and copyright obligations to SCO. We are currently working to try and resolve these issues with SGI"
SCO is saying both things at once.
They are suing IBM for contributing AIX code to Linux. But even if they win, that doesn't give them any IP rights to Linux itself. After all, SCO doesn't own the code which IBM wrote, and if they get damages from IBM, then they are fully compensated for the fact that the code was incorporated into Linux.
So SCO is also claiming that code was copied directly from the AT&T Unix sources, which SCO does own, into Linux. If that happened, then SCO can claim some IP rights to Linux.
Of course, since SCO won't reveal any copying, it's unlikely that they will be able to claim damages. They're supposed to first notify about copyright infringement, and only if it continues do they get damages. SCO is hoping that people pay their invoices without realizing that.
Im a new user here and read thru the FAQ on moderation and this description is for a Troll
.. well then he probobly will get his way, BUT if he is speaking on his firm beleef that everything he have been getting from the lawyers is thru... Then he is just a sad charater that gets my pitty.
"Troll -- A Troll is similar to Flamebait, but slightly more refined. This is a prank comment intended to provoke indignant (or just confused) responses. A Troll might mix up vital facts or otherwise distort reality, to make other readers react with helpful "corrections." Trolling is the online equivalent of intentionally dialing wrong numbers just to waste other people's time."
And i just cant helping thinking that the SCO CEO is a Troll. Or is he just a Flamebait??
I tend to lean at he is a Troll. But on the other hand(appard from that you have other fingers) he accualy might beleave in what the was saying with the "Open Letter to Open Source Community" in that case i just feel sorry for him.
He makes alot of commets about the Open Source people and he is throwing accusations around like it was a fertilizer. It fertilized people to get angry and do stupid stuff so if that is his intention
There is a saying (and this applys to all laywers at least) "If you are not a part of the solution there is good money to be made in prolonging the problem"
Ashes of Empires and bodies of kings, these are a few of my favorite things.
you are not born being an "open source". This is a choice you have made.
Gimme a break. First, I have not "chosen" to be a software developer. It is in my blood. My destiny. I truly believe that. When I came out of the womb, I may not have been visibly classifiable (as in a race), but I was without a doubt born to develop software. As far as open source philosophy, it is clearly the only sustainable philosophy of development to use if one cares about progress and public interests more than private interests. If I had "chosen" to be a software developer, it may have been different. I may have been thinking "career" or "make money quick" or whatever. (And I do believe some software developers are created, not born.) As it stands, I have to acknowledge that there really isn't much money in software development when it's done correctly, and by correctly I mean using a process that puts progress and public interests above those of private ownership, patents, copyrights, and other things which serve mainly to slow down the common good. So again, really not a choice for a decent person, IMHO, unless you get brainwashed or tempted beyond hope by the almighty dollars of closed source software.
So please don't tell me what I've chosen to do and what I'm born to do. Destiny and morality come into it.
Dr. Evil says: "one million lines of UNIX System V protected code"
I was very disappointed to see that SCO had released a so called "open" letter to the public containing MY IP!!! Several words and phrases in the letter were used word for word in a History paper I wrote 5 years ago. Although I later released this paper to the public, I did not give up my rights to the IP and I will therefore be suing SCO, anyone who publishes the article or links to it, anyone who reads it, and the RIAA. Thank you for your time.
Smeghead every day of the week.
Dear Mr. McBride,
I am a 1337 h4X0r. Phear me hard!!!
Your Sincerely,
Maybe so, but he is a successful liar, fraud, and thief. Sucks, but true. Don't assume a conscience beyond helping his own. It's the "sharp business" ethic. Welcome to modern tribal warfare.
Even SCO admits problems with its case: In a recent open letter to the Open Source community, SCO CEO Darl McBride says:
...is an... authorized... work... not...derivative... of... the... UNIX System V code."
... Finally, it is clear that the... SCO Group is... increasingly alienated from anyone associated... with... software... and... community."
"This... Open Source software is healthy and beneficial. It offers long-term benefits to the industry by addressing a new business model in advance of wide-scale adoption by customers."
"My company, the SCO Group, became a focus of this controversy when we... fought to... cast... a shadow over the... Open Source movement... by alleging... that UNIX System V code... is in fact... proprietary software code."
"Linux
"No one can tolerate... SCO's... business model that is... built only on... a lawsuit against IBM.
"I will continue to sue... everyone..."
He appeared to be very smug with that last comment, which bodes well for the many lawyers of the Frivolous Lawsuit community.
http://www.sco.com/company/feedback/index.html
_____ "If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear." -- Orwell
Actually, aside from the twisted quotes this may be the most reasonable thing to come out of Darl's mouth since the fiasco started. It is true that if the open source movement wants to create "enterprise" software that "meets the needs of today's demanding e-business customers" or some shit, that they should really work on the way they spin their work. I don't actually care about enterprise software, myself, but some people do and they should pay attention that part. (This is why I align myself with the Free Software movement rather than the Open Source movement--I never have to use the word "enterprise" in seriousness.)
But the really sad thing about this letter is that it acts as if Darl is just waiting at the negotiation table to resolve this. Yet, despite totally reasonable requests (and IP-protecting methodologies) from the "open source community" to discover the purportedly infringing code so that it can be dealt with, SCO has *not* been willing to do that. All these IP issues could be resolved in weeks if not days with the cooperation of SCO.
Really? One million lines? I don't know if there is really that much code to steal (maybe there is) but are they taking advantage of the fact that C/C++ ignores whitespace? By that logic, one million characters of source could be interpreted as one million lines, possibly more
(Dr Evil)
Why claim a BILLION when you can claim a MILLION?
MWAHAHAHAHAAA!!
(/Dr Evil)
As a former practitioner of the dark arts, the very first thing I told clients involved in litigation was: keep your mouth shut. When big money is involved, every wall has ears. In that sense, Darl McBride is a litigator's worst nightmare. His hyperkinetic gum-flapping is leaving a long, winding, and very public trail of half-truths, exaggerations, and contradictions, all of which are being noted and filed away for future use by IBM's lawyers.
"No comment" is standard operating procedure for corporations involved in high-profile litigation, especially when the stakes involve the survival of the company. If McBride really thinks, as he's said on several occasions, that he is trying the case in the court of public opinion, he's an idiot. The only opinions he's manipulating -- other than those of stock speculators -- belong to a microscopically small segment of the population, none of whom will be sitting in the jury box when the case goes to trial. At this point, I was going to say that he may actually be doing a disservice to the company's stockholders by jeopardizing SCO's prospects at trial. However, since the shareholders of the company consist almost exclusively of insiders, related parties, and speculators taking the stock for a ride, I'm not sure that's a relevant consideration.
In any event, it's pretty clear that McBride's agenda involves something other than the litigation. Any CEO with half a brain knows and appreciates the dangers of commenting on a pending lawsuit. And, if he doesn't, his lawyer should remind him. Yet, Darl's still running his mouth every chance he gets.
Boies took this case on contingency. If SCO rolls the dice and wins, he could be looking at a billion-dollar payday. If they lose, he gets nothing. I can't think of a bigger incentive to keep McBride on a leash. Now, it's quite possible that McBride is a loose cannon. If that's the case, I'd expect Boies to bail out at some point. It's also possible, too, that Boies condones McBride's activities. But, given Boies' reputation for meticulous trial preparation, that seems highly unlikely: every public comment by McBride is another thing to be dealt with at trial.
I honestly cannot recall another instance where a corporation involved in litigation has conducted itself like SCO has.
The bazaar has met the bizarre.
The trouble with practical jokes is that very often they get elected. -- Will Rogers
Four sentences pretty much can sum it up.
1. The Darl keeps repeating that he supports Open Source. Although he says this, he and his company have threatened to sue Linux end-users. If he supports Open Source and has a problem, hit only action SHOULD be directed at IBM and SGI. If he supports Open Source, why is he considering suing end-users, something that will kill the cow?
2.The Darl tells us that only if we join him on the corporate darkside and let SCO help arbitrate Open Source IP, can we all be successful suits. In other words, SCO is hoping that Open Source will save them by coming to the very people trying to destroy them for help.
3. The Darl thinks everyone in the Open Source community is a hacker. Although the DOS has been questioned, only one guy likely pulled it off, but The Darl paints with a wide brish apparently.
4. The Darl admonishes the Linux community for not being open, yet he has yet to release any real code that is solely SystemV IP. If SCO really wanted their IP back (worthless as it is), the best way is to let the community make a good-faith effort to eliminate it all. It would be done if only The Darl was as open with us as he asks us to be with him.
"Curiosity killed the cat, but for a while I was a suspect."- Steven Wright
Eat shit and die motherfucker.
By providing Open Source software without a warranty, these largest vendors avoid significant costs while increasing their services revenue
And SCO is still releasing GPL code, they plan on releasing samba and a stack of other Free/OSS software in their new products, and guess what no warranty.
I think that some sort of patent/license violation MS attack against Samba could prove much more damaging then some silly GPL isn't valid approach SCO is trying.
They used to think it ok to own other people, now they think it is ok to own ideas, they nead teaching that owning ideas is really just a form of mental slavery.
I think someone is trying to prove a point here. I don't think the issue is that there is actually copyrighted code in the kernel, but that there was, if only briefly, and that the development process of the kernel doesn't have suitable checks for this. I'm trying to figure out why SCO would want to go down in flames for this. McBride is metaphorically driving a car-bomb into GNU city; SCO isn't going to make it out alive on this one, and he knows full well that this is the case. I'd like to know what kind of personal gain he's getting out of this. I highly doubt his stock portfolio is going to be his reward, since SCO/Caldera stock is nowhere near its peak, (and he isn't likely to have purchased stock as it plummeted.)
It seems stupid to place the copyrighted code there, then claim the copyrighted code was present. Of course there isn't written permission, they didn't grant it. What is wrong with this picture? I can't think of a better way to illustrate this than if the RIAA unloaded dozens of copyrighted music onto Kazaa, then filed suit against the perpetrator. Wouldn't it be... the RIAA? It's an outlandishly bad business decision, and no company officer in his right mind would make that decision. No stock-holder in his right mind would support it. If the code was placed without permission, wouldn't SCO fire the employee that did so? Wouldn't we have heard from that individual by now? If the employee parted on bad terms, wouldn't SCO try to get the courts to gag him? I'm not seeing any evidence of the sort. Odd, no?
The other piece of the puzzle that doesn't make sense is the license fee "extortion" scheme. SCO has received a mere pittance from this. It has been a more effective tool for getting attention that for bringing in income. Come on, look at what it has netted them. That would scarcely cover their attorney's fees. It is either a distraction, or a way to get the attention of the business press.
Chances are that there are precious few lines of code in the kernel, (or other GPL software) that could be proven in a court of law to be property of whomever it is that actually owns the Unix code. It's obvious at this point that SCO is not seeking damages for this, or they would have already named specific parties and brought it before a judge. Hastiness would be desirable considering the rate at which SCO is burning up funds without a reliable stream of revenue to fill up their coffers.
Some party is trying to spring a trap for GNU software, or perhaps open source software in general. If SCO wins in the courts (unlikely since they haven't even taken legal action -- involving the courts -- against specific parties) then open source development model shows that it cannot prevent tainted code from being included. If SCO loses, I'm presuming they'll have a case with which to show the business world that open source software absorbed their intellectual property, and they were powerless to stop it.
There is also another point, but perhaps it is a bit too esoteric for the business world to grasp -- the business world, where their estimations of a situation general fall into an "is a" or "is bigger than" mode of thought. That point is that the open source model heavily depends on the honesty of its custodians. SCO has shown solid proof that an unethical business does indeed have to power to throw a wrench into the works. That really isn't possible with closed-source developers now, unless there is cross-licensing. For example, Microsoft couldn't taint Sun's Java source code without a hefty dose of corporate espionage, i.e. at great risk. However, with publicly available source, the situation is different. Considering the pace of software development, perhaps this is an unforseen weakness with open source?
Fred
"A fool and his freedom are soon parted"
-RMS
Oh no!
Code contributions are regularly debated in the Linux Kernel Mailing List (henceforth LKML).
You can't say "henceforth" if you don't use it afterwards! Appalling! Otherwise the lawyerspeak was mostly nice. Sometimes I couldn't make out what you were saying. Twisted around too much. Nevertheless, carry on!!!
This post deserves at least a +3 funny modifier.
Yeah.
Let me explain it to those who don't know C.
You have source files and header files.
Source files contain functions. Header files contain declarations of those functions.
If the declaration is present for a function, it's called an explicit declaration.
If the declaration is missing, it's called an implicit declaration.
Implicit declaration is dangerous, because if the function is misused in the original implicit declaration, the implicit declaration will not match the actual function, which could cause memory errors.
So, you should always remember to include the appropriate headers to prevent implicit declaration.
A solution to the problem with music today
The EU might as well be a country, since its purpose making laws that affect all the members....
BTW: if you're European (which I'm not), don't let software patents screw you over the way they have here in the US!
A solution to the problem with music today
Ok, just to even things out, here's some SGI code. This code is top secret stuff, and should even out all the awesome code 'stolen' from SCO by SGI
thats all folks for now :p
Is that SCOX is up around 17.80 on this news today, which is actually linked from all major financial sites and brokerage houses in their SCO coverage. On none of these places can you find links to the German gag order, the fine issued to SCO, or any other material that (in my opinion) would help some of these sorry folks interested in buying SCOX to keep from making a mistake. Scum.
I'm utterly flabbergasted by this remark. Are you suggesting that Mormons typically or generally engage in sleazy lawsuits, pump-and-dump schemes, and stealing intellectual property? That they tend to fight against open source? That you don't like Mormons? Or what?
Have you ever actually met any?
How you got modded +3, Informative, is quite beyond me. Is it important for us to know his religion? Do we think perhaps that he's following standard Mormon doctrine, and that we ought to carefully watch them all for similar behavior?
Sure, the man's unscrupulous, dishonest, and somewhat less bright than average. Implying that he is so because of his religion, unless you can show a direct correlation between Mormon teachings and this sort of behavior, is pure bigotry.
There have been lots of statements made by various good guys trying to refute some of SCO's FUD - but none of it seems to be "press releases". When I had a small company, I thought we paid like a couple hundred bucks to join a news service - then we could issue a press release and have it picked up by that service.
When I go to Yahoo, and lookup info on SCOX, I think it picks up all news releases that mention SCOX. (I know that when there are class action lawsuits against companies, they manage to get their press releases to show up on a search of the news of that target company.) Currently, all the news on SCO is from their PR department.
So, if we make a press release and mention SCO, and it shows up under SCO news, then maybe we'll reach a much larger audience in our attempts to dispel their FUD.
Any takers?
Mike
Wow thanks for the fix I had the shakes from withdrawal I think it was a whole 2 days this time.
Frankly, I smell blood for the first time in this epic. SCO's position is weakening and the Open Source community seems to be disproving all their arguments within hours of an SCO press release. The fact that McBride has awoken and thinks he needs to address the Open Source community for the first time says he's really getting beaten up.
Yet he still doesn't get it, and I can see more openings by which he'll be receiving the next few punches. His whole pose is based on a belief that Open Source must be basically another company that can be sucked into negotiations with lawyers and fat cats over a business table. This is most transparent right at the end of the letter:
A sustainable business model for software development can be built only on an intellectual property foundation... the SCO Group is open to ideas of working with the Open Source community to monetize software technology... It is easier for some in the Open Source community to fire off a "rant" than to sit across a negotiation table.
So what if Open Source contributors are fundamentally not interested in software business development, happy to volunteer time for free, and would prefer that communities, governments, schools, and charities have free and open tools to make themselves better?
Then, SCO's chief Darl McBride has demonstrated that he has no strategic plan whatsoever.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
Be very sure you've read the source code for the GETVEC routine in BCPL before you make that claim. GETVEC is of course more sophisticated than malloc in that it can shuffle the heap, which malloc can't, so malloc is at best a copy of part of GETVEC; but a partial copy is still a copy.
Mind you I'm not saying Dennis Ritchie copied direct from GETVEC. He may have copied from someone else who copied from GETVEC, or both he and Martin Richards copied from something else I don't know about.
But just because the code in Linux looks like the code Dennis Ritchie wrote doesn't make it Dennis Ritchie's code, it only makes it another decendent of the code Dennis Ritchie was copying.
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
There is obviously a lot wrong with the open letter being discussed, but I think it bears emphasizing that its audience is probably not the stated audience of the "Open Source community."
As a developer who has released code under the GPL, do I give a damn whether enterprise customers use it or not? No. I recognize that certain businesses who wish to "monetize" Open Source/Free Software will be interested in reaching those enterprise customers, and I further recognize that certain Open Source advocates see enterprise acceptance as key to advancement of Open Source itself, but such views are certainly not unanimous amongst Open Source/Free Software developers. For myself, and for many developers, the motivation is not being accepted by "enterprise customers" but in making code freely available to, and potentially receiving "acceptance" from, peers and/or general users.
(As an aside, to point out that "enterprise acceptance" is not the sole marker of success, to what degree has Quake been accepted in the enterprise? Thus the subject line for this post, that there is more to life and computers than "enterprise customers.")
I doubt that McBride is unaware of widespread apathy and/or antipathy regarding acceptance or use of code by enterprise customers. But I believe the stated audience of the letter is not truly the intended audience; I believe the intended audience is enterprise customers themselves, and anyone else who can have a positive impact on SCO's bottom line. McBride derides the Open Source community for firing off a rant and not wanting to "sit across a negotiation table" but he demonstrates the very behavior he derides. With respect to the stated audience, his letter is a "rant" fired off by him instead of him wanting to sit across a negotiation table.
See it for what it's worth: Financial propaganda. It's not any more communication with the Open Source community than him giving the community the finger.
No Laughing Allowed!
Dear Darl,
This is a open letter to the SCO Group and its CEO about your recent actions that are injurious to hundreds of individuals and companies.
The SCO Group has taken the position that Unix is a single operating system and that SCO Group is the sole owner of Unix. This is a false statement. The determination that an operating system is qualified to be called a Unix is made by The Open Group. The Open Group has certified many different operating systems as Unix. Truth: Unix is not the sole possession of the SCO Group and Unix is several different operating systems.
The SCO Group does own the Unix System V code. The Unix System V code has serious intellectual property issues that the SCO Group has overlooked:
1) Much of the code has been in the public domain, released by a license holder either through carelessness or choice. The SCO Group does not have any controlling right to that code.
2) Many universities' staff and student contributed to the early work done with Unix. Their IP has been protected by court decision. The SCO Group should recognize that publicly and not seek to rewrite history.
3) There are very details standards that apply to certain Unix functions, coding to these standards will create very similar code. Just because code within your Unix System V is similar to code in an open source does not mean it has been stolen.
4) Unix System V may have had the copyright marking from the origins of code removed by previous owners, either through error or on purpose. A diligent review of the actual source of the Unix System V source code should be done. The copyrights of contributors should be restored. The historical records are available to make the Unix System V accurate. The improper removal of copyright by the SCO Groups predecessors is the responsibility of the SCO Group, who needs to verify the origins of each portion of Unix System V source code. This is a sound copyright practice.
The suggestion to verify the source of code added to Linux is sound and is the practice of the Open Source leadership. The SCO Group has yet to provide a workable plan to identify any code that they clearly own that should be removed. The beauty of Open Source is the public access to the source. The source code of Linux is available to all. Any owner of code may that is infringing can have the code removed proving that they can prove ownership. Please show the SCO Group owned code in Linux that infringes on Unix System V, show clear ownership of that code, and it will be removed. The integrity of the Unix System V source code is called to task by those who have concerns about the Linux Kernel Personality. There have been allegations that actual Linux source code has been used to build this feature. The SCO Group should show leadership in IP matters by allowing a group of Industry leaders to examine the entire LKP source for stolen IP of Linux. The allegations are based on the SCO Groups involvement in developing Linux before, during and after the development of the LKP. SCO Group employees had complete access to Linux during the development process. The chance of IP contamination is huge. Only a thorough impartial investigation can give the SCO Group validation in this IP matter. The SCO Group must make the source available or be forever suspected of IP theft.
The definition of derivative works that the SCO Group has stated is very one sided and mis-leading. To state that a licensee gives up control of previously developed technology when it is associated with Unix System V is most likely not to stand up to legal scrutiny. Even the independently developed functions that are closely related to the core functionality of Unix System V, but remain clearly separate from the original source code are not derivative works if they do not contain Unix System V source code. It is improper to claim ownership of others IP without sound legal grounds. That the SCO Group suggests that the IP of other companies is part of the Unix System V, when the product was se
The 331,669 shares of SCOX that Darl McBride has an interest in, either through direct ownership or as vested options, have a net value of $5,382,044.97.
The trouble with practical jokes is that very often they get elected. -- Will Rogers
Very interesting article here that SCO have little information on how the origin of Sys V. code.
This will backfire big time at the trial or maybe as soon at the alledged Offending Code leaks after discovery.
Quote:
Dr Toomey's statements come a few days after Greg Rose, an Australian Unix hacker from the 1970s, raised the possibility that there may be code contributed by people, including himself, which has made its way into System V Unix and is thus being used by companies like the SCO Group.
Dr Toomey said this was one reason why the code samples which the SCO Group had shown at its annual forum had turned out to be widely published cod
Help fight continental drift.
In the unlikely event that the GPL is found to be invalid, as Darl has claimed, SCO will be in even worse shape than they are now. The GPL is the only thing that has allowed SCO to distribute the Linux kernel at all; if the GPL is invalid, SCO is guilty of tens or hundreds of thousands of counts of copyright violation themselves. At up to $150K damages per count, they could have to pay damages comparable to what they've asked from IBM.
I know that this has been said several times before me, but...
I would just like to say that I am quite impressed with the response drafted to this open letter. It is quite well written, with very little inflammatory language (which is often difficult to avoid), well thought out, and definitely well received.
Thank you for drafting it.
Bravo.
Why oh why didn't I take the purple pill?
Disclaimer: If I disagree with you I'm probably trolling...
Bruce Perens and Eric Raymond take this letter apart and publish an appropriate response.
... interesting :-)
It would be
Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence.
As much I enjoy the humourous and fascinating art of picking apart SCO's press releases here, everyone again seems to forget one thing: Darl and his gang doesn't care about Open Source. They don't care about Linux. They don't care about IBM or Redhat. They don't even care about their own crappy product line. They know that their case has no merit and that SCO will end up bankrupt. The fact is that the sole purpose of anything that comes out of SCO is to boost their stock price, and this strategy continues to work wonders. It's over $18 now. This is all they care about. I just hope that when it is all over, they're all in jail.
This is a subtle point that probably escapes those who this letter is directed towards. That is to say, business types not technologists. And certainly not the Open Source community.
It might help the business community to draw a few more blatent parallels. We can look at the software industry directly. One major leader in that industry, the well known if not respected Microsoft, has a history of running afoul of other's IP.
I don't bring up Microsoft to bash them. Rather, if an industry leader with the amount of resources Microsoft has at its disposal can't keep itself clear of infringing IP... what makes McBride think any other apsect of the industry - Open Source or not - has any guarentee of being infringement free?
Critics may point out that Microsoft's transgressions may not have been accidental. And that only further highlights the futility of McBride's point.
But maybe it is the software industry. Maybe they're not old enough to have gotten a handle on how to operate. We could take a look at a simular industry that can track its liniage in centuries rather than decades; publishers of books and newspapers.
Unfortunately we can quickly find problems with traditional published materials. Newspapers and journalists came under increased scrutiny with the much-publicized plagarism (amoung other things) charge against reporter Jayson Blair of the venerable New York Times. And book publishing has long been marred by plagerism - Alex Haley's well-known Roots: The Saga of an American Family is a prime example.
Does that make the publishing industry any less appropriate for mainstream business than the software industry... to include Open Source software? Hardly. The publishing industry has lasted for centuries. The software industry has been growing for the last few decades. And Open Source is yet just another part of this overall history of publishing creative works.
Sure - plagarism and "IP theft" will continue to be an issue within these aspects of the publishing industry. But just because the issue exists does not mean the industry itself is suddenly invalid.
Or that business should pass it by.
I've just phoned SCO, and talked two people (I would poast the E-mail addresses, but were giving invalid e-mail addresses) who infomred me of the following:
:)
Licenses are only vaild for/in North America
Lawsuit is only vaild in North America
Lawsuit and Licenses are Not need for/in Quebec since it's not part of North America
Licenses are only need if Kernel 2.4.x is used
BSD is not currently in the lawsuit, but if any *BSD has used or ported Linux code over, they may be open to a lawsuit
SCO resured, the Unix Code is thiers
And with that information, I will telling my CIO to move all of it's AIX and Gnu/Linux Servers to somewhere in Quebec, since SCO thinks it's not part of North America.
- Cindy
funny, Darl's letter sort of reminds me of this letter from Bill Gates:
AN OPEN LETTER TO HOBBYISTS
By William Henry Gates III
February 3, 1976
An Open Letter to Hobbyists
To me, the most critical thing in the hobby market right now is the lack of good software courses, books and software itself. Without good software and an owner who understands
programming, a hobby computer is wasted. Will quality software be written for the hobby market?
Almost a year ago, Paul Allen and myself, expecting the hobby market to expand, hired Monte Davidoff and developed Altair BASIC. Though the initial work took only two
months, the three of us have spent most of the last year documenting, improving and adding features to BASIC. Now we have 4K, 8K, EXTENDED, ROM and DISK BASIC.
The value of the computer time we have used exceeds $40,000.
The feedback we have gotten from the hundreds of people who say they are using BASIC has all been positive. Two surprising things are apparent, however, 1) Most of these
"users" never bought BASIC (less than 10% of all Altair owners have bought BASIC), and 2) The amount of royalties we have received from sales to hobbyists makes the time
spent on Altair BASIC worth less than $2 an hour.
Why is this? As the majority of hobbyists must be aware, most of you steal your software. Hardware must be paid for, but software is something to share. Who cares if the people
who worked on it get paid?
Is this fair? One thing you don't do by stealing software is get back at MITS for some problem you may have had. MITS doesn't make money selling software. The royalty paid to
us, the manual, the tape and the overhead make it a break-even operation. One thing you do do is prevent good software from being written. Who can afford to do professional
work for nothing? What hobbyist can put 3-man years into programming, finding all bugs, documenting his product and distribute for free? The fact is, no one besides us has
invested a lot of money in hobby software. We have written 6800 BASIC, and are writing 8080 APL and 6800 APL, but there is very little incentive to make this software
available to hobbyists. Most directly, the thing you do is theft.
What about the guys who re-sell Altair BASIC, aren't they making money on hobby software? Yes, but those who have been reported to us may lose in the end. They are the
ones who give hobbyists a bad name, and should be kicked out of any club meeting they show up at.
I would appreciate letters from any one who wants to pay up, or has a suggestion or comment. Just write to me at 1180 Alvarado SE, #114, Albuquerque, New Mexico, 87108.
Nothing would please me more than being able to hire ten programmers and deluge the hobby market with good software. Bill Gates General Partner, Micro-Soft
In watching this whole affair, I am wondering what will happen when SCO is in Chapter 7, the execs have drifted away on their golden parachutes, employees are out of work and the creditors are picking over the bones looking for assets to use to recoup their losses? I am sure someone (M$ maybe) will come up with the bright idea to buy the Sys V sources and perhaps use it to continue to spread the FUD. This assumes, of course, that SCO dies before reaching trial or the code doesn't wind up in the public domain as a result of litigation. Maybe we in the community should start a fund to buy the Sys V sources from SCO, much in the same way Blender was bought? That way, there can be no more arguments about mis-appropriated code from the next weasel (no offense to the noble weasel) out there who wishes to try a similar stunt but has deeper pockets. Or, we could release the Sys V sources under th GPL and then go and sue all the Unix companies, past and present, for misappropriating GPL'd code. Maybe SCO would consider that a sustainable, workable business model for the Open Source Community? ;)
"To Mr Raymond's partial credit, he asked the attacker to stop. However, he has yet to disclose the identity of the perpetrator so that justice can be done."
I was unaware that Mr Raymond was employed by a law enforcement service, or otherwise involved in investigating DOS attacks.
How do you know that SCO didn't copy the code fragment from somewhere else?
You don't.
They've managed to inflate it to $18 a share with this.
I wonder if the day will ever come when investors read Slashdot like it was the Wallstreet Journal.
I find the whole SCO vs IBM case an interesting matter. I see that rather than fight the fight in court, the two are fighting it in the open, getting people to comment on the flaws in the case correcting as they go along (can you say ammended complaint).
Maybe SCO isn't so dumb after all.
Eric B
ebresie@gmail.com
Okay so if SGI is the perpetrator of some of the infringing lines of code, why are they suing IBM again?
Eric B
ebresie@gmail.com
I would not be surprised a bit if after 5 or 10 years we will learn that MS was behind all this mess.
1. Hire the greedy immoral CEO of a firm near bankruptcy for outrageous attacks on linux and open source.
2. Start an accountability, IP property, etc. bull.... campaign to promote your own products.
3. Deny any relationship with attacks on your competitor.
4. Profit!!!
ta_relax
I made that joke before you, you misappropriating pirate! The Slashdot community must learn that they can't use proprietary humour at their own whim. Respecting humouristic property is not an option, it is mandatory!
By the way, Darl's RDF has reversed polarity: it faces inwards.
Rarely does someone expose their cluelessness in such a public forum. If this is really from the president of SCO, we should all short the stock now.
He keep saying that we are theives and pirates yet still does not enumerate what specifically we were supposed to have stolen or priated.
Nor does he address the issue that the entire body was distributed by SCO under GPL which should negate any claims.
Or to correct one of his sentences: SCO software code was present in software distributed [BY SCO FROM SCO SERVERS] under the GPL. [And this wasn't something up for a week by mistake and pulled].
Does SCO respect the terms of licenses such as the GPL or do they not?
"You stole my car!" "No, you gave it to me, here is the signed title". "That piece of paper doesn't matter! It's still my care until I change my mind back that you should have it".
If he won't say what they are alleging is stolen property, I don't see why anyone from the OpenSource community should cooperate. We don't know that ESR knows the identity of the DoSer, only that enough information was given that he/she was in the community. Show your cards before you ask us to show ours.
He doesn't want to help us police ourselves by removing the offending portions of the Linux kernel (if any) despite numerous and continuous requests to do so. He wants to play the FUD game.
He says we should check the IP to prevent unauthorized transfers. We have done so. If we erred, just show us (of course he still doesn't want to).
It would also help if he were literate enough to read and understand all of Perens' commentary and analysis. The code would not compile so (assuming it was real code) it couldn't be part of any real unix. The parts in question were in sections that were either BSD copyright or where AT&T lost the copyright - far from an admission of guilt and any reading would have made this clear. It sounds like SCO is accusing someone of stealing water by drinking out of a public fountain.
Far from "ignoring or challenging copyright laws", we are the ones asking that the GPL which is based on it is upheld AND again ask to say where we are ignoring or violating it. Desparately asking for precise areas of violation is hardly ignoring or challenging a law.
"Thief!". "what?". "You stole something!" "What do you think I stole?" "I'm not going to tell you but you are still all thieves and liars and probably club baby seals every chance you get...".
Instead of the dozens of paragraphs ranting about how important copyright is, I think it would have been better for all sides if he simply showed a half-dozen examples of code he alledges are stolen.
Instead of rant and counter-rant, how about some facts? Show us the evidence. For that matter, show us the sections of code even if you don't want to show us any evidence.
You want to help the Opensource community deal with copyright - just show us. We will respond faster than you can imagine.
We think we can bear the harsh light of day, but why can't your evidence seem to?
We do not love thee, Darl McBride,
I do not love thee, Dr. FellThe reason why we cannot grok;
But this we now, you really suck,
You cannot hide, you little f*ck.
Okay..so if the former Caldera released and open sources stuff and the current Caldera (SCO) does not subscribe to this belief, can they legally change the terms by which the former Caldera already released the code?
Beside which, I think that it is the duty of the IP holder to identify when someone infringes with the IP (since unless you sign that nasty NDA you can safely say that you haven't been authorized to look at proprietary code). You would think that since they know who had access to the IP rights, they could identify the offending developer, company.
Eric B
ebresie@gmail.com
"This improper contribution of Unix code by SGI into Linux is one small example that reveals fundamental structural flaws in the Linux development process."
Okay assuming that proprietary code got included in an open source project, in what way is the open source development system flawed. How is the development system any different than say the system used to develop proprietary software that ends up including GPL'd code without disclosing the fact.
The very fact that open source is open discourages this kind of behavior unlike proprietary code that can be hidden away.
McBride... you are an idiot.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
This sounds like something Bill Gates would say... I wonder if there's any kind of talk taking place beween M$ and SCO - If not I still maintain my stand: I wonder how much of the LINUX source has been used by M$ in which case, they too would be subjected to having their heads buried in a big pile of horse shit by SCO ---
;)
Cheers
First, let me start off my describing my experience with Linux. In 1998, I installed a copy of Redhat on an old 486. I played around with it for a few weeks in my spare time and eventually gave the computer away to some charity. That's it. I've never touched it since. In my line of work, I have to use PCs (and Macs occasionally) because that's where my specific software is found. I have no particular opinion of Linux. In my experience I find that people will use whatever OS best suits them, and that's how life just works. A few months ago, I started reading stoires about SCO suing IBM. I read on and found a lot of interesting points on both sides. I see this as a real test of where the GPL and Open Source Software fit in to traditional copyright laws. But after reading you letter, I find that SCO just doesn't see the bigger picture. In your letter, you refer to the Open Soruce community as though it was one large business. It's not. It's called a community for a reason. Simply because a few people choose to use the Open Source model for business purposes, does not mean that everybody does. It would be equivalent of me coming into your neighborhood and surmising that because you are a businessman at SCO, everybody in your neighborhood is the same. Now, I recognize, you're not that concerned with the rest of the community. You purely want to address the business element. That's fine. But it is important to recognize that your actions cause ripples that affect other people. Going back to the analogy, if the mailman came in and said everybody who is a businessman at SCO must pay $100 to have their mail delivered, but used my scope to determine that everybody is like you, a lot of people would be hassled because of the scope of analysis. You speak of your copyrights and it seems like you may or may not have a case. After reading numerous articles at this point, I see that nobody seems to be telling the whole truth. Some people admit your code is in the Linux Kernel while others dispute the original source. Some people say you put it out under a GPL project, so it's open for free use. You dispute this by saying you never agreed to the GPL in that way (This seems mutually exclusive in my opinion. By releasing under the GPL, the agreement is that the entie code is up for grabs. I don't see how you can agree that you released in under GPL, but the code isn't up for people to use.). So you've taken action to sue IBM and SGI over these issues (instead of the actual individuals that may or may not have put the code in there themselves). This is where you start to lose my sympathy for your arguement, and agin we have to look at scope. If you presented your code segments and told the Linux Dev community (they are strikingly easy to find) about this, I'm sure the majority of them would look at the situation and find a remedy. They could either replace it with new code or work out a deal with you to keep the code. As a business, I think you would know the concept of crafting a good public image. But you chose to sue. This immediately puts people on the defensive, especially when you seem unwilling to put hard evidence out to the community that is being attacked. So I'm left trying to figure this out in my head and the Linux side is winning the arguement. Sure, some of them have been a little malicious with DoS attacks. That is inappropriate behaviour. But the majority of people just want to resolve the issue and move on developing for the good of everyone (see, once again, the scope is general non-corporate). They don't want to deal with copyright litigation (which is mainly written by holders of copyrights, which are mainly businesses, so don't hold copyright law above us as some great, patriotic thing we should worship. Our copyright law is the laughing stock of most of the world). The Linux Dev Community seems to want peaceful resolution. My question to you is why you don't.
It's not stupid. It's advanced.
...SCOX hits a new high ~18. Shorts are eating their own shorts. But short at 22 has been my target since all this started. Getting ready to ride this boy DOWN!
I asked a Mr. Clinton Pownall about so-called Linux Licenses last week. He failed to answer any questions about the licenses. He did say Linux users needed to be "made whole" without being about to explain the meaning behind that empty but legal-sounding phase.
.02 dollars
He did add that he knew "the base of Linux is Unix" without offering any proof besides SCO' original March 6 statement that started this debacle.
Next he added an anecdotal story about his daughter burning copies of music CD and commented "$210.00 isn't worth loosing your integrity over."
I emailed him back and asked him if "Is SCO stock and/or paychecks worth YOUR integrity?"
His email address is clinton@computerbusiness.com
He answered an email I sent to sco@scosales.com.
He should know about the products SCO sells.
I ask that all Slashdot readers email him and POLITELY but FIRMLY ask him by what right does SCO even offer such licenses.
Just my
[rene]$ find /usr/src/linux-2.4.20/ -name "*.c" -exec cat {} \;|wc -l
3333733
Of these lines a lot are comments, empty or just "{" or "};"
Maybe if empty lines occur in Sys-V code they are copyrighted too???
Rene
I guess RIAA may just settle for oral sex?
hehehe... Depends on your point of view.
:-)
I know there are missionaries who get a little overly zealous. I had a few who I worked with when I was out knocking on doors who drove me crazy. Needless to say we didn't get along very well. Probably because they didn't understand that people don't like to be pissed off. Someone says go away that's good enough for me
Has Comcast disconnected your Internet account? Same here. You can read about it at http://comcastissue.blogspot.com
Somebody stole some .h files from FreeBSD, remove the original copyright, pasted the stupid GPL license over it and delivered. The Linux people do not care about other people license: only the GPL bigotry matters. Maybe the SCO guy has a point here.
September 9, 2003
Open Letter to Darl McBride,
I would like to briefly respond to your open letter to the Open Source Community, dated today. I consider myself to be a member of that community, having developed Open Source software myself, although I do not claim to be any kind of "leader", or to represent the views of other members of the community.
Firstly, I would like to join you in condemning the Denial of Service attacks that took place against your web servers. Using vandalism and illegal tactics is not an appropriate way for people to respond, however strongly they disagree with you or SCO's words or deeds. In your open letter, you quoted Eric Raymond's reaction to the DoS attack, but you seemed to suggest that he knows the identity of the perpetrator. I can't speak for Mr Raymond, but I believe that in the letter you quoted from, he actually said that he DID NOT know the perpetrator; it was an associate of the perpetrator who contacted him. Do you have any evidence to suggest that Mr Raymond is not co-operating with the authorities in helping them to bring the perpetrator to justice?
The memory allocation code you mentioned, does, at first blush, appear to have indeed been copied illegally by SGI, and perhaps SGI have some got some explaining to do. However, this is a very tiny part of Linux as a whole, and the notion that "one million lines of UNIX System V protected code have been contributed to Linux" is obviously based on an incredibly improbable reading of copyright law in terms of what you consider to be "derivative works" (one that if upheld, would turn copyright law on its head).
Contrary to what you suggest in your letter, in my experience, members of the Open Source community understand very well and fully respect copyright laws.
In fact, a very telling remark in you letter where you talk about "transferring copyrights in contributed code to Open Source", leads me to believe that we understand it better than you do Mr McBride. Open Source is NOT THE SAME as Public Domain. Open Source software relies on Copyright Law to protect the authors. There is no "transfer" to some nebulous Open Source status. When I write a piece of software, I as the author, hold the copyright on that work. When I choose to release it, I license it to my customers using the GNU General Public License, the BSD license, or some other Open Source license. My customers agree to the terms of the license. If they violate the terms of the license (for example, they attempt to sublicense my work), they are in breach of our agreement, and they are misappropriating my work.
In your letter, you refer to "problems that exist in the current Linux software development model". The Open Source development model, by its very nature, is transparent. Any intellectual property problems can be quickly identified and addressed because the code is out in the open. I contend that there is absolutely no way for SCO to tell whether a closed-source system such as Windows, AIX, etc has code copied within it. You are holding the Open Source community to a higher standard than the proprietary software community.
Finally, I'd like to address the 5 points in your summary.
"1. Fair use applies to educational, public service and related applications and does not justify commercial misappropriation."
I agree.
"2. Copyright attributions protect ownership and attribution rights--they cannot simply be changed or stripped away."
Absolutely agree. Perhaps SGI have some explaining to do here. But also, I'd like to hear your explanation of why the Regents of the University of California attribution is missing in the Berkley Packet Filter that showed up in your slides at the Las Vegas presentation?
"3. In copyright law, ownership cannot be transferred without express, written authority of a copyright holder. Some have claimed that, because SCO software code was present in software distributed under the GPL, SCO has forfeited its rights to this code. Not so - SCO
to all of my slashdot compatriots:
please visit stock bulletin boards or other financial forums and let them know where they can get some honest opinions on the FUD that SCO continues to spread:
http://slashdot.org/search.pl?topic=88
andrew
Why did I lurk so long before registering for a Slashdot account? I could have had a Slashdot ID of less than 100000.
This is exactly what is wrong with applying intellectual property law to software. The law wants to assign ownership to a single entity, or failing that, separate pieces belong to different entities. However, for software to work, the pieces have to integrated, modified, ported, copied, improved, created for a program to work. And this has been going on since the beginning of computing. Trying to assign an owner to each piece is a useless exercise.
Ah, but wasn't fair use only valid for educational and non-commercial purposes? (according to Mr. McBride)
Wouldn't a PR campaign in a billion-dollar lawsuit process qualify as a commercial endeavor?
Freedom is the freedom to say 2+2=4, everything else follows...
This is rich, a discussion of dicto simpliciter on Slashdot. Aren't you people supposed to be bashing all that is Microsoft, all the time, right about now?
(downmods expose those with lack of humor sense)
"Sufferin' succotash."
For the nasty things she has done.
I'm sorry but there is a flaw in this rebuttal.
:P
:P
This is very difficult to respond to, because your analysis of the issues and of the reasons for the Open Source community's anger is, in the words of the great physicist Wolfgang Pauli, "so bad it's not even wrong."
But of course we all know Wolfgang Pauli actually said:
"This isn't right. This isn't even wrong." --Wolfgang Pauli
But other than that it seems to be ok
ps. I actually got this quote after logging in on a linux 2.6test3 machine which greets with a random fortune, just after I read the article. It's a sign... I know it
Is suing people a sustainable business model? Or maybe annoying people?
Quoting people out of context is more of a hobby...
Here's a fun little experiment. Open and ftp session to ftp.sco.com. Get the binaries 'ls' and 'gzip' from /bin. Upon examination the files appear to be statically linked gnu tools with copyright notices removed! They were nice enough to leave the copyright notice *in* the tar binary. Geez.
That was a new one. The only wording I've heard before was that Michael Jackson is living proof that American truly is the land of opportunity.
...for where else in the world, you tell me, could a poor black boy grow up to be a rich white woman?
Wow, "there are ways we can make sure this happens!"
You put your weekends on hold developing software not to make any corp happier, like this bozo is claiming, but simply because you want to put it out for others to use. Just like you use other people's stuff.
This guy really doesn't get it.
It also implicitly states that the purpose of the whole suite has nothing to do with IP, but finding a new, free money source called free, open source.
This letter should be used by IBM, et al. legal teams to show intent.
My overall feeling from the writing is that this guy used to be not long ago a telemarketer or a used car salesman. There is something in the tone of this letter that makes it sound as if he's trying to rip you off. If I would be doing business with SCO, and I was at the other side of a table, I would simply stand up and leave. No questions ask. As if I stay, I know that the outcome would not be good.
I think one of the most significant statements Darl made was how the copyright could not be transferred without written consent of all parties, and thus Caldera's release of such code under the GPL is null and void.
Isn't this the same as saying that electronic licenses mean nothing? If so, he's threatening to disrupt a very massive foundation of law that companies rely on - electronic agreements.
While some click-through licenses have had their legality questioned, if I recall, the most recent case found in favor of the license/company and not the user.
IANAL, but legal precedent appears to demonstrate that a document that clearly states "By using this you agree to..." is valid, assuming all of the points in the document are fundamentally legal. One cannot sign away basic human rights, for example.
So, does the GPL usurp copyright law? His statement that "all parties" must be involved in the signing of a copyright transfer document, of some sort, is invalid when making the decision to release your code as open source, because "all parties" includes "every open source user alive."
So, it's up to a judge to test the GPL. I think this would make a good jury trial: A jury would likely have little sentiment, and regular joes are sick of signing away (what they believe to be, and in many cases is) their fair use rights to things they buy, and would likely rule that a statement made by SCO (even in a "shaky" form such as the GPL) is legal and binding.
# Erik
Following Wil's example, I've translated this letter back into its native tongue. It sheds a whole new light on who this "Darl" person really is. :-)
By Darl McBride
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TEH MOST CONTROV3RSIAL ISUA IN TEH INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY INDUSTRY 2DAY IS TEH ONGONG BATLE OV3R R COPYRIGHTS AND INT3LECTUAL PROPARTY!11!11! LOL THIS BATL3 IS BNG FOUGHT LARGELY BTWEN V3NDORS WHO CRAAET AND S3L PROPREITARY SOFTWAER AND TEH OPEN SOURC3 COMUNITY1!11!!11 OMG LOL MAH COMPANY TEH SCO GROUP BCME A FOCUS OF THIS CONTROVARSY WHEN WE FIELD A LAWSUIT AGANEST IBM ALEGNG TAHT SCO'S PROPREITARY UNIX CODE HAS BAN ILAGALY COPEID IN2 TEH FRE LINUX OPARATNG SYSTAM1!11 OMG WTF IN DONG THIS WE ANGAR3D SOM3 IN TEH OPEN SOURCE COMUNITY BY POINTNG OUT OBVIOUS INT3LECTUAL PROPERTY PROBLEMS TAHT 3XIST IN TEH CURENT LINUX R D3V3LOPMENT MOD3L
THIS!111 OMG WTF LOL D3BAET ABOUT OPAN SOURC3 R IS H3ALTHY AND BN3FICIAL1!11!!1 OMG LOL IT OFARS LONG-TARM BN3FITS 2 DA INDUSTRY BY ADR3SNG A NU BUSIENS MODAL IN ADVANCA OF WIED-SCAEL ADOPTION BY CUS2MERS!!11!!1 WTF LOL BUT IN DA LAST WEK OF AUGUST TWO DEV3LOPM3NTS OCUR3D TAHT ADVARS3LY AFECT TEH LONG-TERM CREDIBILITY OF DA OP3N SOURCE COMUNITY WIT TEH G3N3RAL PUBLIC AND WIT CUS2MERS1!1!! WTF LOL
TEH FIRST D3VELOPMENT FOLOWAD ANOTH3R SEREIS OF D3NIAL OF SERVIEC (DOS) ATAKS ON SCO WHICH 2K PLAEC TWO WEKS AGO!1!11! WTF THESA WAR3 DA SACOND AND THIRD SUCH ATAKS IN FOUR MONTHS AND HAEV PR3VANTED WEB US3RS FROM ACASNG OUR WEB SIET AND DONG BUSIENS WIT SCO11!! OMG WTF LOL THEIR IS NO QU3STION ABOUT DA AFILIATION OF TEH ATAKER - OP3N SOURCE L3AEDR ERIC RAYMOND WAS QUOT3D AS SAYNG TAHT HE WAS CONTACTED BY DA PERPETRA2R AND TAHT "HA'S ON3 OF US"111! WTF LOL 2 MR RAYMOND'S PARTIAL CR3DIT HA ASKED DA ATAK3R 2 S2P!1!1 LOL HOW3VER HA HAS YET 2 DISCLOSE TEH IEDNTITY OF DA PERPATRA2R SO TAHT JUSTIEC CAN B DON3!!!!!!1! LOL
NO ONA CAN 2L3RAET DOS ATAKS AND OTHER KINDS OF ATAKS IN THIS INFORMATION AEG MAH TAHT RELEIS SO H3AVILY ON DA INTARNAT1!!!!1!1 OMG MR RAYMOND AND TEH ANTIER OPAN SOURCE COMUNITY NED 2 AGR3SIEVLY HELP DA INDUSTRY POLIEC THAS3 TYPES OF CRIEMS11!!!!1 OMG WTF IF THEY FALE 2 DO SO IT CASTS A SHADOW OVER TEH ENTIER OPAN SOURCE MOVAMANT AND RASEES QU3STIONS ABOUT WHATHER OP3N SOURC3 IS READY 2 TAEK A C3NTRAL ROL3 IN BUSIENS COMPUTNG1111 OMG LOL WE CANOT HAEV A SITUATION IN WHICH COMPANEIS F3AR THEY MAY B NAXT 2 SUF3R COMPUTAR ATAKS IF TH3Y TAEK A BUSIENS OR L3GAL POSITION TAHT ANG3RS DA OP3N SOURCE COMUNITY!!!1!1!! OMG WTF UNTIL TH3SA ILEGAL ATAKS R BROUGHT UNDER CONTROL ENTERPRIES CUS2MERS AND MANESTRAM SOCEITY WIL BCOMA INCR3ASNGLY ALEINAETD FROM ANYON3 ASOCIAETD WIT THIS TYP3 OF TEH!!11 OMG WTF LOL
SACOND DEVELOPMENT WAS AN ADMISION BY OPEN SOURC3 L3AEDR BRUCA P3R3NS TAHT UNIX SYST3M V CODE (OWN3D BY SCO) IS IN FACT IN LINUX AND IT SHUDN'T B THEIR1!1111! OMG WTF MR P3R3NS STAETD TAHT THEYRE IS "AN 3ROR IN DA LINUX D3VALOPAR'S PROC3S" WHICH ALOWAD UNIX SYST3M V COD3 TAHT "DIDN'T BLONG IN LINUX" 2 END UP IN DA LINUX K3RNAL (SOURCA COMPUTERWIER AUGUST 25 203)!111!11 OMG LOL MR PERENS CONTINUED WIT A STRNG OF ARGUMANTS 2 JUSTIFY TEH "3ROR IN DA LINUX DEV3LOP3R'S PROC3S"1!!1!1!! WTF LOL HOW3VAR NOTHNG CAN CHANGE TEH FACT TAHT A LINUX D3V3LOPAR ON DA PAYROL OF SILICON GRAPHICS STRIP3D COPYRIGHT ATRIBUTIONS FROM COPYRIGHTED SYSTEM V COD3 TAHT WAS LIECNSED 2 SILICON GRAPHICS UNDER STRICT CONDITIONS OF USA AND THEN CONTRIBUTAD TAHT SOURCE COD3 2 LINUX AS THOUGH IT WAS CL3AN CODA OWN3D AND CONTROLAD BY SGI!!1!!! WTF THIS IS A CL3AR VIOLATION OF SGI'S CONTRACT AND COPYRIGHT OBLIGATIONS 2 SCO11!!!1!1 WTF LOL W3 R CUR3NTLY WORKNG 2 TRY AND R3SOLV3 THESA ISUES WIT SGI
THIS!!11! WTF LOL IMPROPER CONTRIBUTION OF UNIX CODA BY SGI IN2 LINUX IS ONE SMAL EXMPLA TAHT R3VEALS FUNDMENTAL STRUCTURAL FLAWS IN TEH LINUX DEVELOPMANT PROCES1!!! WTF LOL IN FACT THIS ISUE GO3S 2 TEH V3RY H3ART OF WH3THER OPEN SOURCA CAN B TRUST3D AS
This article indicates that under Debain 2.2, the Linux kernel contains approximately 1.8 million lines of code.
Counting potatoes: The size of Debian 2.2
Darl is therefore saying that well over half over Linux source code belongs to SCO.
This is just so hilariously funny and tragically sad at the same time that I can't decide how to react.
"Scientists prove we were never here."
-- Devo
Although it takes a different form, that's what SCO is trying to do in convincing people that they must license SCO software to use Linux. I don't support DDoS as a concept, including when SCO does it.
So SCO ensures that all employees have the authority to transfer copyrights to code contributed in their private developments, does it?
I decide what gets into My Projects, not global corporations. Hell, I don't even know who uses my products. That's the point with open source.
Look, I'm a Law student. Anybody who's read the GPL knows that it doesn't transfer ownership at all. Ownership is retained; certain rights are licensed in respect of that ownership, including the right to freely redistribute on the same terms. This statement is simply not legally correct.
Listen to yourself! Declaring something to be "mandatory" is not negotiation! While what's said here is technically true, the inference of "respect" is that that respect has not been honoured, a factually dicey proposition.
Response to Darl McBride's Open Letter
;)
Giving the impression that Darl McBride thinks the open source model is flawed is his own opinion, him stating is opinions and false facts is apparently apart of his compaign of fear, uncertainty, and doubt.
Open source was created to escape from mainstream closed source software. In open source software everybody has access to the code and can say "hey thats my copyrighted code and I don't want it in there" According to news articles Darl McBride says he won't reveal the code because SCO won't be able to invoice users for money. He claimed the Open Source community is able to replace any code disputed, however in newer articles he says that it dosent matter because they can't replace the code.
The closed source model is highly different, nobody can view the code. Your intellectual property is less protected under the closed source model. Nobodoy has access to the code except for the owner. Somebody can include somebody else's code in encrypted software and the they cannot know it, oppose to open source.
SCO has also willingly released linux under the GPL before, never stating anything about their code being included while they had access to the entire code of both systems, unix and linux. Now they claim the GPL is invalid, which is not true. Surprisingly the law suits occured shorlty after Darl McBride joined The SCO Group. Darl McBride the only reason he is doing this is for money.
Now, without publicly proving that their code is in linux, only showing code to non-programmers that are not allowed to research the origions of the code, The SCO Group are requesting money from all Linux users, not for a price of their code allegedly included in Linux, but for the entire operating system. They did not develop All the code in linux, so why would they be charging $699 per CPU? Can't you get a windows 2003 web edition for $99? I consider this unfair business practicies. SCO needs to start respecting the property of the contributors of Linux.
Even if the code is actually in linux, The SCO Group has failed to work with the community in correcting these errors, they plan to hold linux for ransom. The SCO Group says they don't want the community to know the code so they can't replace it.
I call on Darl McBride to use our message boards and defend himself using only the facts.
SCO is using unfair business practices to extort hundreds of dollars for allegedly claiming rights to parts of the linux kernel. for example, it would be like microsoft charging $699 for Microsoft office for macintosh and claiming the entire rights to the system. They claim that if users don't pay up then they will face court action. SCO earlier claimed that they will only target corporate users, apparently they lied to the world and are now requesting money from home users. However, anybody using Caldera Linux will not have to pay anything, even if it was free.
SCO claims any work for the Unix created is property of theres according to contract agreements. However, since the work created by other companies not SCO were used seperately from unix, as well as in unix, SCO has no rights over the disputed code.
When AT&T had unix, it lost its copyright to the code in question because it was no published without a proper copyright notice. All code past that lawsuit is in public domain. All code beyond that is not disputable. All BSD code that SCO licensed is disputable.
I further say that The IBM JFS and SGI XFS Filing systems are not disputable as well.
Note: I am not held liable for any non-factual information and not held liable for typos
that ESR is the biggest "hacker" hater on the planet. His response to whoever was DDOSing SCO was probably a rant about what it means to be a "hacker" and how his father was discredited by the media. Remember kids, we stole ESR's dad's word and he hates us for it.
How we know is more important than what we know.
This is almost comical !
r eflaws_1.html
Quote from: http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/08/20/HNscomo
"The obfuscated code example is not SCO's property," said Perens. "It was developed by the Lawrence Berkeley Lab in 1993, under funding of the US Government. The code was added to SCO's version of Unix in 1995 or 1996, he maintained. "SCO took (the BSD) source code, lost the attribution, and now believes it's theirs."
That has to be the longest non-rant, well-thought, properly spelled and punctuated and basically most lucid thing I've heard on the subject yet.
Can I bum a sig? I left mine at the office.
We all know they are the power behind the throne, what IBM is doing is pointing that out. IBM is connecting the dots back to Canopy. If they are able to show how Canopy has benefited from a frivolous lawsuit designed to support a pump and dump operation, IBM has a real shot at taking on Canopy directly. I also believe Canopy's past activities will be admissable as a company that goes around making frivolous lawsuits by buying companies with outdated IP and using them for frivolous lawsuits. I am sure they won't get everything on that list, but they will get some good dirt.
svr3.2-3b2-src.tar.bz2
svr3-src.tar.bz2
svr4.0-att-3b2-src.tar.bz2
svr4-doc-src.tar.bz2
svr4-port-base-src.tar.bz2
I have come here to make a statement. Today, now for more as a year, McBride stands for corporate scandals, recession, stock market declines, blackmail, burning with hot irons, mutilation with electric drills, cutting out tongs, terror, massmurder and rape.
McBride has planted false information and evidence to insite fear amongst linux users for corporate terrorism. We cannot show contempt for McBride. He defies the Linux community, we can only act appropiate.
McBride is only building a culture of corporate terrorism. McBride's purpose is more than to follow a process, it is to achieve a result : the end of the civilized world.
Tonight i have a message for McBride: go home and die.
Thank you mister speaker
Raymond and Perens respond to McBride's open letter
This letter was written as a PR move, plain and simple.
I agree with this post wholeheartedly, but it is much more than that and ignores the real danger SCO presents. There is a sometimes a difference between the truth and what people believe. It is quite possible there are a few small infractions made by IBM, amounting to a a few $ million. What SCO is doing however is lining up the business people and the people who believe in a meritiocracy of the USA in order to leverage that. You know those people, they drive huge jackass SUV's, are igonorant about everything and know everything at the same time, live in huge houses bought on credit and are inpired to joy by consumer products. If GW Bush were to pick this issue up tommorrow who do you think he would support? He would support SCO, except that IBM would give out enough cash to make him think twice. They are trying to pass the Patriot Act II, a law that would allow them to strip citizenship, have secret trials, kick your door in and drag you away in the middle of the night to be questioned. Do you honestly think they wouldn't pass a law, write a rule or convince a judge to invalidate the GPL if it suited them?
SCO is putting themselves out there as upstanding business people 'just trying to make a living', while whacko liberal 'hackers' are stealing their IP for their own Liberal, dope smoking, DDOS, criminal uses. Raymond and Perens are only helping SCO by refuting them. It is pointless to refute a liar! This is why most people do not comment on ongoing or FUTURE litigation. This is the same kind of FUD, half truths and obfuscation that gets most politicians elected and the reason average people LOVE and trust Microsoft. Raymond and Perens need to STF^ before they do any more damage. Their actions are not helping.
I am amazed at how oblivious you all are to the real nature of this attack by SCO. This is not about IP, this is about about SCO undermining the Linux brand and taking away the oxygen from the open source movement. This is a power play. SCO can win! They are winning! A few more politicians need to be swayed, a few judges need to be 'talked to' over a game of golf and this whole endeavor goes down the tubes for the open source community. That is how Microsoft got off, they got the President to quash their case! And they were blatantly guilty. Who do you think is behind SCO. What do you think they will do to support what they want? They are not alone. They have tremendous power and influence. They know what they are doing. They are not ignorant. They are NOT stupid.
Being right is irrelevant, being a winner is everything. The business community needs to feel that Linux is indestructible, that it will be there after they make a $100 million investment. The Linux community needs to be like a cyborg, indestructible, irresistable, patient, relentless (take a page from IBM's book, look how they are running their operation). Idealism will only carry you so far. The SCO's of this world need to FEAR and RESPECT the Linux community or they will use the legal system and the court of public opinion as a weapon, and they WILL WIN, maybe not now, but the destruction of Linux will be inevitable.
Linux is your pet project. Why the should anyone care. Why shouldn't they destroy it, when it suits them to do so and is a convenient enemy and it helps their position in society and government.
Fuck IP, SCO is costing the Linux community hundreds of millions of dollars in lost revenue growth, critically slowing development in a lightning paced industry and is endangering the prospects for a MULTI BILLION dollar industry over a few million dollars in worthless code. Linux is part of an industry vital to keeping the US competitive in a globalized world, and is in danger of being shipped entirely offshore because US law is fucked up. They are endangering an entire sector of the US economy, and one of the fastest growing sectors at that. But no one is talking aobut that, they are talking about
SCO is making a LOT and I mean a LOT of fuss without showing any real proof it seems. :-)).
Because, in my opinion, if they had REAL proof, they'd probably post it on their website, heck they might even distribute it on paper.
I'm asking myself, when will the FSF finally countersue SCO for slander?
If it was SCO vs Microsoft, SCO would be burried in lawsuits until the year 2500 (in which SCO will be no more
Yeah... doesn't Darl know ESR is nuts!? He best watch out.
-pyrrho
he doesn't post on k5 anymore. :(
I bet it works for YOUR MUM too.
There should be a way (even as a backdoor) to connect to him. It's 21st century. No way he is completely disconnected.
Less is more !