Back To SCO

wampl3r writes " Eric Raymond and Bruce Perens deliver a great response to SCO's recent Letter to the Open Source Community. Their response does a good job of presenting many of the finer points we have been arguing about around here, but it's nice to see them in such a formal, well-thought-out letter." Munchola adds "Meanwhile, ComputerWire, from where McBride misquoted Perens in the first place, sets the record straight: 'In his statement McBride appears to have attributed a ComputerWire paraphrase as a quote from Perens.'" stefan points to this response to McBride's letter from Kevin Bedell, LinuxWorld Magazine's Editor. Below, find one reader's idea about the "stolen lines" SCO claims are in the Linux kernel, and one expert's claim that SCO might not know some of its own source code very well.

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..."

Comments

How can one steal lines of code?

[Thinkit3]

You can copy them, but not steal them. Unless you delete the lines that were there, but I doubt that happened. How illogical.

Re:How can one steal lines of code?

[bladernr]

Wow. That's a thinker.

If you check out dictionary.com's definition of steal, it seems clearer. "To steal" is broader than "you have the item, now I do not." The first definition is "to take (the property of another) without right or permission."

Again according to dictionary.com, the 3rd definition of property is "Something tangible or intangible to which its owner has legal title: properties such as copyrights and trademarks." So, I think steal applies, at least according to dictionary.com, because to steal is to take property, and property can be somethign intangible like a copyright.

With all of that said, saying steal is, if not inaccurate, at least confusing. According to this article on O'Reilly, copyright infringement would be a much better way to say what SCO is claiming (IMO, this would apply to the RIAA as well).

So, I guess the short answer is that "theft" doesn't necessary mean that I no longer have it, only that you do, and the longer answer is that "infringed my copyright" would be a perhaps more useful choice of words.

Well, useful for people who want to have rational, non-emotional, thinking conversations. What gets more attention in the court of public option: 1) "You infringed my copyright !" or 2) "You're a thief!"? IMHO, that is why they use the word "steal."

How meaningful.

[pla]

what if they just compared linewise? All those empty lines in the code would have the same content.

They wouldn't even need to include things like empty lines to get a large number of matches, in a line-by-line comparison...

How many of the following do you suppose exist in any large code base?

int i;

int j;

for(i=0;i<size;i++)

if(flag)

if(!flag)

while(!done)

while(count)

memset(data, 0, sizeof(data));
I could go on, but don't really need to. At least in most code I've seen, almost every single function would contain at least one of just what I presented above (taking into consideration a few other common variable names for similar purposes, of course).

Not an impressive way to measure plaguerism.

Re:Maybe it time to start working on HURD

[tuffy]

More diversity in the open source arena would be a good hedge against one company (ie SCO) mucking it up with its FUD.

This is more than about the Linux kernel's good reputation, though; this entire SCO debacle goes to the heart of the Linux development model. SCO is essentially saying "you guys are a bunch of irresponsible, un-accountable code thieves". Simply abandoning the Linux kernel not only affirms SCO's bullshit, but it hamstrings the entire process by which it was developed and makes the whole open source community look bad.

It's not about the kernel, it's about the process.

Big problem: Press Access.

[jbottero]

One of the biggest problems with this response to the SCO FUD campaign is that while SCO enjoys excellent access to the mainstream press, both IT press and popular press, the Open Source community responses do not. So, no one out there really hears the Open Source side. This is one good reason that McBride et al keep releasing all this patently absurd hogwash; they know the press will bite, and ignore the other side.

Re:Go Big Blue!

[rking]

Generally accurate. However, taking something does at least strongly imply that the previous person no longer has it. If I make an exact replica of your car, I don't think you would claim I'd taken your car. If that included replicating your copyrighted paintwork I don't think you could reasonably claim that I'd 'taken' your copyright. You'd still have copyright.

Certainly as a matter of law, copying something is not the same as theft. Copyright infringement is covered by different laws to theft and carries different penalties.

Of course, if someone wants to use the word for emotional impact then when challenged they can always say they were speaking figuratively. Like saying prices are "extortionate" or "daylight robbery" or that someone is "getting away with murder" doesn't mean those offences are literally involved. It only get amusing when someone is challenged and tries to insist that copying something really is theft.

File a complaint with the FTC

[Slashdolt]

File a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission. Mention how you feel that they are attempting to extort money from you. The FTC DOES take these matters seriously. If they receive many complaints about a particular company, they will be very inclined to launch an investigation. The mere mention of an FTC investigation is not good news for a company, nor its stock.

File a complaint online

Take a more active role in this. Don't just vent your frustrations on /. where no one outside our community will hear.

-- Slash