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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.
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...
Well, after RTFA, it has everything to do with the SGI crap which has since been removed for being a kludge. This is the code snippet which we are aware of anyways.
From the Article: 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.
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
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.
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.
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.
"... 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?
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?
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?
"Men lie."
"Yeah, about sleeping with other women, but never about bioluminescent plankton."
-Dan Brown
We live in a world of disinformation! Whether it is the politicians or business people it is becoming all too common. Several things jump to mind: - Bill gates in the anti-trust suit having ridiculously selective memory - Disinformation on both positions on the Iraq war whether Washington, Europe of even Information Ali - The SCO/IBM situation. - Enron The list just goes on an on. The world is becoming such a scary place.
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.
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.
I can take things out of context too! "The most controversial issue" with having sex with cows "in the information technology industry today is the ongoing battle over software copyrights and intellectual property." ALSO "This battle is being fought largely between" various warring factions in my rectum, and "vendors who create and sell proprietary software, and the Open Source community." AND "My company, the SCO Group, became a focus of this controversy when we filed a lawsuit against IBM alleging that" we would really like to have repeated sex with cows, and "SCO's proprietary Unix code has been illegally copied into the free Linux operating system."
- 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?....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
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.
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.
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?
"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.
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.
No one is going to claim responsibility for X. Not even sco.
.....
Remove/re-write? hmm....
*rimshot*
When in doubt, parenthesize. At the very least it will let some poor schmuck bounce on the % key in vi. (Larry Wall)
...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?
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?
Yes, I know you're trolling
Ah, yet another conversation between Mr. Pot and Mrs. Kettle regarding relative colour intensity.
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.
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.
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
Yeah, Europe, that well-known country...
Sheesh!
Tubal-Cain smokes the white owl.
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.
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
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.
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.
----
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.
You might want to research the SEA/PK thing a little. It gives unfortunate insight into what might happen to Linux. PK took the arc source and re-implemented some of it in assembly language. That made it faster, but did not make it his.
SEA was a very small company (husband and wife). This was not the David and Goliath battle we were led to believe so long ago.
Its all on the web. Google for it and learn.
'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...
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.
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.
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?
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!
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?
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
The letter is misleading and rife with out of context quotes and even misinformation. It serve no other purpose other than to harm the U.S. economy.
Quick! Call Homeland Security! Finally, a productive use for the new laws....
--
As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
"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.
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.
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.
(\(\
(^.^)
(")")
*This is the cute bunny virus, please copy this into your sig so it can spread
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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
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
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...
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
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?
Raymond and Perens respond to McBride's open letter