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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.
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
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.
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.
Actually this is a good thing. When they're resorting to exaggerations like this, it shows how little SCO really has.
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"
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.
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
OSS leaves just as much to "chance" as a closed source model.
How does a closed-source shop know that one of their developers hasn't cut'n'pasted something from glib? Same was as OSS: ask the developer, and assume that they're not out to screw you.
Finally, your solution would be expensive - who would pay for it?
You cannot generalise from a person, or even several people, to an entire community.
Agreed. But are you arguing that ESR shouldn't inform the proper authorities about the crime he knows has been committed?
That would, IMO, be the right thing to do - stop the activities of someone whose actions harm the community and its reputation, and demonstrate (if demonstration is needed) that we have respect for the law. On this point, Mr McBride is right.
Gerv
That is true, but it still doesn't mean that guilt of one "open source community member" = guilt of all.
Your comparison of being a black person to being a member of the open source community is mildly offensive. Contrary to how many open source developers and advocates present themselves you are not born being an "open source". This is a choice you have made.
The open source community is just that, a community. What one person or sub-group does inside this community does reflect on the group as a whole. Instead of comparing it to a minority group you should be comparing it to a company or club. If one person in a company/organizaton does something of questionable ethics it does reflect on everyone else. It is therefore in that organizations best interest to police itself.
I believe the same is true for the open source community. By sticking to a set of values and admonishing those that don't the open source movement will gain more acceptance.
One should not theorize before one has data. -Sherlock Holmes-
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.
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
If SCO had a case they would identify the IP infringements and collect their royalties and be done with it. There is no infringment therefore SCO cannot produce the code, so all they do is BLAB BLAB BLAB...WHY DO PEOPLE STILL LISTEN TO THIS SH!T...
DRM? No thanks, I'll just get it somewhere else...
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.
"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
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.
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.
...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 think this is the most interesting part of the letter, and indicates a change in focus for them, or at least another case of "we're going make every argument we can think of, regardless of the validity"
This could be read to mean that they claim the BSD release of 'ancient unix' isn't valid for commercial purposes even though it was licensed under a BSD license.
We're beyond stripped-out copyright attributions (which was Mr. Peren's problem with the SGI code) if that's the case, but I don't think there's anyway to justify this argument. IANAL, maybe someone else is.
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 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.
Not really - it would be better to compare it to a religion than a company since the 'Open Source Movement' is more of an ideology than anything else. So since, SCO's from Utah why not substitute "mormons" for "open source": you're not born a mormon, you either become one by choice or are indoctrinated into the community by your parents just as parents indoctrinate their open source ideology onto their children. But just because there are mormons out there kidnapping young girls, it doesn't mean they're all guilty by association.
And to top it off, the Jackass suggests that the open source community needs a "sustainable business model". What a unbelievable case of tunnel vision.
I'm considering writing a video driver for my notebook computer's built in computer camera. Why? So I can sell the driver? Uhm, no. Simply because I want to get it to work on Linux. And if some company tries to sell a driver, that doesn't mean I'm only doing it to compete with them. It doesn't mean I have to start charging for it, or make a "sustainable business model".
This guy really is in his own world. And it's obvious there is no oxygen on it.
You are checking your backups, aren't you?
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
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.
But are you arguing that ESR shouldn't inform the proper authorities about the crime he knows has been committed?
...that the attack is happening. So the authorities know this. I'm sure SCO has also made sure they know.
...that he wanted the attacks to stop. So the authorities know this. Not that ESR has any control over the attackers, other than perhaps some respect in their eyes.
...that he did not know the identities, and did not want to know the identities of the attackers. So the authorities know this.
ESR stated in public....
To make sure the authorities are fully informed, ESR, or anyone else, can forward ESR's public remarks to the authorities. I have a difficult time imagining that with SCO involved, the authorities have not already contacted ESR and interviewed him to obtain the facts I just described.
That would, IMO, be the right thing to do - stop the activities of someone whose actions harm the community and its reputation, and demonstrate (if demonstration is needed) that we have respect for the law. On this point, Mr McBride is right.
McBride is wrong in so many ways.
As to your other points, how do you stop the activities of someone you do not control, or even know the identity of?
Hey, I've got an idea! If you want to demonstrate your respect for the law, why don't YOU cooperate with the authorities in stopping all terrorist attacks!
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
It doesn't imply universal guilt; however it might be indicative of institutional "guilt", be it wilful or negligent (cf Catholic priests).
Can you apply the same logic to open source? I don't know, I still haven't graduated from the famous Slashdot School of Analogy.
What a dilemna for moderators... Do you moderate +1 Informative for reposting a slashdotted text, or -1 Troll for the content? Hmmm....
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.
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.
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.
That would only be the case if they didn't find earlier examples of the code elsewhere, right? I seem to remember that this was AT&T code, then BSD/SCO code. Which should they cite for copyright?
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.
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.
SCO also seems to have missed a little irony here as well. The infringer was working for a company; he wasn't a commie hacker working on open source in the basement of his parent's house. This code was "developed" under the watchful eye of responsible capitalists, yet copyright infringement happened anyway. I wonder what copyright infringements there might be in SGI's (or even SCO's) proprietary code, and why SCO doesn't seem too worried about that.
-- Pot is safer than Beer
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
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
That reminds me of a quote from Sports Night. Isaac, the executive producer, who is black, says, "I love you, Danny, and because I love you I can say this: no rich young white kid ever got anywhere with me comparing himself to Rosa Parks." It doesn't even matter if the comparison is reasonable (not that I think yours is), it just won't get you anywhere ...
It doesn't imply universal guilt; however it might be indicative of institutional "guilt"...
...be it wilful or negligent (cf Catholic priests).
No. It's just an indicator of individual guilt. Now, if a substantial percentage of Mormons began kidnapping young girls you might be able to make a case. As long as the percentages aproximate the population at large you can't make that implication.
Now, if your Mormon kidnappers of young girls are being shielded by the LDS church you've got something.
--
As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
IANAL. This is probably an example of the "I've got more lawyers than you do" tactic. A disreputable tactic, when used by someone you disagree with; a fun one, when used by someone you agree with. While Canopy is trying to fight off the discovery requests, they'll get pummeled with more supoenas, say for affidavits for all the principles. And if the discovery requests stand, well, while Canopy's trying to collect all those documents, IBM might file for a gag order against McBride's "open letters," etc. Just keep flooding Canopy's lawyers until they cry uncle, or Canopy goes under, or SCO's stock falls far enough that canopy is forced to accept a pittance as IBM's takeover offer. (Or until MS buys them out, at which point WWIII: The Lawyer Edition begins).
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.
A really good view/break-down/rant on this letter can be found here
It is a very well written and quite thorough analysis.
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*This is the cute bunny virus, please copy this into your sig so it can spread
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.
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?
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.
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