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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.
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.
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.
"... 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?
Agreed. But are you arguing that ESR shouldn't inform the proper authorities about the crime he knows has been committed?
He doesn't know who it was, so how is he going to inform any authorities?
The simple answer is here. ESR doesn't know the identity of the DDoSer, having only dealt with a cut-out, only that (s)he is "an experienced Internet engineer". I find it incredibly crass of Darl to intimate that someone of ESR's standing in the community is obstructing the course of justice like that, and wonder if ESR might have some grounds for a libel case.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
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.
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.
No, "unreasonable" is the correct word, however you're right in that the meaning of the sentence would be clearer if the phrase "unreasonable licensing obligations" were changed to "unreasonable proprietary licensing obligations".
Feel free to make this change if you forward/post it anywhere else.
That doesn't change the fact what we have here is the logical fallacy of "Dicto simpliciter".
Even if we were talking about the damn marine corps, simply because one individual chooses to act in discordance with the group's stated goals doesn't at all reflect on the group.
Any attempt at making that claim is NOT an argument, but perhaps an explanation...
I don't read or respond to AC posts
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..
The previous SCO story included this comment which, I believe, is exactly what you're looking for.
It addresses the McBride letter point by point, and is well written.
What part of "shall not be infringed" is so hard to understand?
Depends on the publication. The Village Voice, for one example, has never had any qualms about printing letters to the editor with the word "fuck" in it. As for business correspondence, yes, you're right. But this isn't business correspondence, it's a *heartfelt* response to Mr. McBride's open letter. The words "complete" and "fucking" as adjectivial modifications to the noun "idiot" were the strongest way to drive the point home.
And it was *heartfelt*.
"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.
These slides have several C syntax errors and would never compile. So, they don't quite represent any source code in Linux. But we've found the code they refer to. 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. The Linux developers have a legal right to make use of the code under that license. No violation of SCO's copyright or trade secrets is taking place.
This is why partial quotes are dangerous. You get to see one line but not the part that came before it, so that makes it look completely different. Please everyone, before you post your opinion on one of these quotes, read the Original Post referred to, or better yet the original article. If you're going to include a quote, make sure it includes the entirity of the idea or else people will get confused.