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VikingBrad writes "The Sydney Morning Herald has an article on Dr Warwick Toomey of The Unix Heritage Society claiming that SCO may not know the origin of code in System V, including claims that there is a lot of BSD software in Sys V."
Alex writes "I wondered where the 100k+ lines of copied code
in the linux kernel would come from in comparison
to the SCO Unixware stuff. Then a thought popped
up in my head: what if they just compared linewise?
All those empty lines in the code would have the
same content. But how many empty lines are in the
Linux Kernel Code? This small shell script counts them for you:
emptylines=0; function parse_dir () { for file in $1/*; do if [ -d "$file" ]; then parse_dir $file; else while read line; do if [ "$line" = "" ]; then emptylines=$[$emptylines+1]; echo $emptylines; fi; done
Kernel 2.4.22, yet cleaned of the code which SCO
claimed was stolen, has still 733140 empty lines, probably copied and pasted by the bad, bad kernel developers from the good, good SCO guys..."
+5 for the poor coward....
:30 UTC (0 Talkback[s]) (12873 reads)
Response to SCO's Open Letter
Sep 10, 2003, 05
(Other stories by Eric S. Raymond and Bruce Perens)
[ Thanks to Gerry Tool for this link. ]
Mr. McBride, in your "Open Letter to the Open Source Community" your offer to negotiate with us comes at the end of a farrago of falsehoods, half-truths, evasions, slanders, and misrepresentations. You must do better than this. We will not attempt to erect a compromise with you on a foundation of dishonesty.
Your statement that Eric Raymond was "contacted by the perpetrator" of the DDoS attack on SCO begins the falsehoods. Mr. Raymond made very clear when volunteering his information and calling for the attack to cease that he was contacted by a third-party associate of the perpetrator and does not have the perpetrator's identity to reveal. The DDoS attack ceased, and has not resumed. Mr. Raymond subsequently received emailed thanks for his action from Blake Stowell of SCO.
Your implication that the attacks are a continuing threat, and that the President of the Open Source Initiative is continuing to shield their perpetrator, is therefore not merely both false and slanderous, but contradictory with SCO's own previous behavior. In all three respects it is what we in the open-source community have come to expect from SCO. If you are serious about negotiating with anyone, rather than simply posturing for the media, such behavior must cease.
In fact, leaders of the open-source community have acted responsibly and swiftly to end the DDoS attacks -- just as we continue to act swiftly to address IP-contamination issues when they are aired in a clear and responsible manner. This history is open to public inspection in the linux-kernel archives and elsewhere, with numerous instances on record of Linus Torvalds and others refusing code in circumstances where there is reason to believe it might be compromised by third-party IP claims.
As software developers, intellectual property is our stock in trade. Whether we elect to trade our effort for money or rewards of a subtler and more enduring nature, we are instinctively respectful of concerns about IP, credit, and provenance. Our licenses (the GPL and others) work with copyright law, not against it. We reject your attempt to portray our community as a howling wilderness of IP thieves as a baseless and destructive smear.
We in the open-source community are accountable. Our source code is public, exposed to scrutiny by anyone who wishes to contest its ownership. Can SCO or any other closed-source vendor say the same? Who knows what IP violations, what stripped copyrights, what stolen techniques lurk in the depths of closed-source code? Indeed, not only SCO's past representations that it was merging GPLed Linux technology into SCO Unix but Judge Debevoise's rulings in the last big lawsuit on Unix IP rights suggest strongly that SCO should clean up its own act before daring to accuse others of theft.
SCO taxes IBM and others with failing to provide warranties or indemnify users against third-party IP claims, conveniently neglecting to mention that the warranties and indemnities offered by SCO and others such as Microsoft are carefully worded so that the vendor's liability is limited to the software purchase price, They thus offer no actual shield against liability claims or damages. They are, in a word, shams designed to lull users into a false sense of security -- a form of sham which we believe you press on us solely as posturing, rather than out of any genuine concern for users. We in the open-source community, and our corporate allies, refuse to play that dishonest game.
You invite us to negotiate, but you have persistently refused to state a negotiable claim. You have made allegations of a million lines of copied code which are mathematically impossible given the known, publicly accessible history of Linux development. You have uttered vast conspiracy theories which fail to be v
Canopy own SCO. Darl McBride can't take a dump without Ralph J. Yarro's approval.
... .
Here's some info on Ralph
from vultus.com
Under Ralph's direction, the Canopy Group has identified and invested in promising open source and Internet infrastructure technologies. Canopy's greatest strength lies in providing the companies that produce these technologies a sheltered environment in which they can grow and develop. Canopy companies are strongly encouraged to work with each in synergistic partnerships.
Ralph also servers as Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Angel Partners, a 501(c)3 support organization for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. He is also a Trustee for the Noorda Family Trust, the Scenic View Center, and the Worth of a Soul Foundation. He is the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Altiris, AP Software, Caldera Systems, Center 7, Coresoft, and Helius. He sits on the Board of Directors for: the Canopy Group, 2NetFX, Arcanvs, Cogito, DataCrystal, Expressware, Global Prime, The Guy Store, HomePipeLine, iBase Systems, Interworks, Lineo, MTI, ManageMyMoney, Nombas, Profit Pro, Recruit Search, Troll Tech and TugNut.
The way to get a Ralph is though these company he controls.
Hey, I'm sorry to you guys that love these companies, but the way to hurt Ralph Yarro is to go for jugular. If the guys that ran these companies called up Ralph and told him to knock it off, the suit would get dropped tomorrow. As long as they can go scot-free taking Canopy money and not paying the consequences, then Ralph can do what ever he wants.
Time to attack this bastard on all fronts.
Alas, such stories don't get referenced by Yahoo! Finance and most SCO investors don't search Google News, (but should).
IBM has taken steps to silence them.
Go to groklaw and read up on IBM's subpoena agains canopy (not SCO!). IBM has done the right thing, in that they are avoiding beating an already dead horse (SCO) and going for its owner.
Canopy will happily lead SCO to corporate suicide, as long as they are able to cash in. IBM now has changed the rules of the game, because they have signaled they are going to drag Canopy from their VIP lounges onto the playing field.
The above subpoena is IMO the most interesting and important development in this whole SCO fiasco, and I'm really surprised that it doesn't get the attention it deserves.