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

disappointed

[kurosawdust]

Aww man, the one time I want ESR to mention his gun collection and he doesn't do it!

Re:disappointed

[tomhudson]

There is no need for a license to implement any unix service under windows. The POSIX specification is out there for anyone to implement. So stop it! (Besides, Microsoft already had a license - remember this (Xenix

In the late 1970's Microsoft licensed UNIX source code from AT&T

They have a license from AT & T, they have access to the POSIX specification, wtf more do you want?

Re:disappointed

[inertia187]

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

It don't work none.

Re:disappointed

[MuParadigm]

I may be wrong, but I think MS sold their ATT license to Old SCO when they got out of the Xenix business.

Re:disappointed

[Hubert_Shrump]

how about:

cd (linux kernel dir)
find . -exec awk '{if ($0 ~ /^$/) {print $0}}' {} \; 2>/dev/null | wc -l

I get 650580 off of 2.4.21

Re:disappointed

[treat]

find . -exec awk '{if ($0 ~ /^$/) {print $0}}' {} \; 2>/dev/null | wc -l

Not only is this unnecessarily complex, you have a fork/exec for every file, plus one for the find and a needless one for wc. (Not to mention pointlessly running awk on directories requiring you to redirect stderr to make the output look nice).

At least the original one was slightly clever in that it didn't run any external commands, but try this instead. It will be by far the fastest, and it is the easiest to understand. I challenge anyone to come up with a solution that is cleaner, or one that is more than 1% faster.

find . -type f -print0|xargs -0 grep '^$'|wc -l

Of course, if Unix didn't suck, you could do this: awk '/^$/{A+=1}END{print A}' `find . -type f`

Re:disappointed

[Hellkitten]

find . -type f -print0|xargs -0 grep '^$'|wc -l

You need to get lines containing only whitespace too.

find . -type f -print0 | xargs -0 grep'^[:space:]*$' | wc -l

Re:disappointed

[tomhudson]

You might be right, but nobody needs a license to develop work-alike software, nor to develop interfacing software :-)

Re:disappointed

[Hubert_Shrump]

this is the type of dialogue i'd hoped the book 'code reading' was about. though maybe less caustic.

thanks for showing another way to do it. i just learned xargs existed a month or so ago - looks like that and expect should get upped on my RTFM list.

i also f*d up in that it counts lines in the documentation, which is patently wrong.

Re:disappointed

[FreakinHippie]

Unless the software is patented in your location. :(

Re:disappointed

[tomhudson]

Wrong. Work-alikes don't violate patents or copyrights: IBM/Lotus vs Borland/Quattro

Most of the software "patents" won't stand up in court, as they are for trivial, obvious and non-innovative features. The USPTO is fucked up, rubber-stamping anything and everything these days, and leaving it to the courts to re-examine patents that don't meet the standard for patentability.

Even copyright doesn't protect from work-alike development :-)

Re:disappointed

[FreakinHippie]

Wrong. Work-alikes DO violate patents but NOT copyrights.

The Lotus vs. Borland case was based on copyright infringement and that was why it was lost. Patents, on the other hand, apply to methods (which is why software patents are BAD) not actual work.

Also, I agree with you on the USPTO being fucked.

Re:disappointed

[tomhudson]

A work-alike does NOT need to violate a patent. The work-alike can use other methods to achieve the same goal, in which case there is no patent violation.

Also, if the method can be shown to be trivial, obvious, etc., the patent protection is lost. That's the law. Any patented process or method has to demonstrate originality, non-obviousnes to those specialized in the field, not be trivial, no prior art, etc. Failing any one of these invalidates the patent (which is why so many software patents aren't valid. Even the USPTO admits they dropped the ball on this issue, and have to revise their procedures).

Re:disappointed

[FreakinHippie]

Agreed.

+5

[Anonymous Coward]

+5 for the poor coward....

Response to SCO's Open Letter
Sep 10, 2003, 05 :30 UTC (0 Talkback[s]) (12873 reads)
(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

Re:+5

[lullabud]

did you hear it...? i swear i heard the cheers of the opensource community echoing around the world...

Re:+5

[gpinzone]

...not merely both false and slanderous, but contradictory...

Slander is spoken. Libel is written. He's guilty of libel.

Yours truly,
J. Jonah Jameson

Re:+5

[MoxCamel]

We will not attempt to erect a compromise with you on a foundation of dishonesty.

Heh heh...he said erect...

Darl McBride is a Big Fat Idiot: A Fair and Balanced Review of SCO

Re:+5

[gpinzone]

It's the other way around.

Re:+5

[Our Man In Redmond]

McBride has given speeches and issued written statements. IANAL, but that sounds like both slander and libel to me.

Re:+5

[en_0ne]

What if he was dictating the letter?

Dictionary.com : Slander
Oral communication of false statements injurious to a person's reputation.

Of course the legal definition requires that at least one other person be around to hear the slander for it to be such... like someone taking dictation maybe.

Re:+5

[angst7]

Slander is spoken. Libel is written. He's guilty of libel.

While Libel refers specifically to written, published defamatory statements, and slander is used from a legal standpoint to refer to such communicated orally; slander is also generally used in a broader sense to refer to any combination of such abuse. In this case, McBride is guilty of both forms of defamation primarily in the form of interviews, tele-conferences and public presentations. Hence, slander is probably the best word to describe the majority of his acts.

If he had only begun to carry on this way in this letter, Libel might be a better word.

$0.02 down the drain.

Re:+5

[lobsterGun]

Dear Mr Jameson:

Please lay off the criticism on that poor Spiderman. He's actually doing the city a service by taking on the villans that the police are afraid to or unable to handle.

Your's truly
Theodore Roosevelt.

Re:+5

[tomhudson]

poster wrote:

Dictionary.com : Slander
Oral communication of false statements injurious to a person's reputation.

Updated Dictionary.com : Slander
See Darl McBride (it's all shit anyway :-)

Re:+5

[ubeans]

You mean the bride is actually a he?

Re:+5

[atrader42]

Slanderous isn't being used as a legal term in this. Since it's not a legal document, it's reasonable to use slanderous simply as an adjective meaning lies with a harmful intent. In any case, as somebody else said, SCO has definetly done both.

Re:+5

[IIH]

Slander is spoken. Libel is written. He's guilty of libel.

To be pedantic, I think the difference is the matter of record. Libel requires a record of the offence, whereas slander does not, hence a verbal comment on a recorded radio show would constitute libel, not slander.

Open to correction, as this is a memory from an article I once read in the distant past.

Re:+5

[abmurray]

Slander is spoken. Libel is written. He's guilty of libel.

Well, it's all considered libel now. There is no longer a distinction between the two.

(And yes, I do get the JJJ ref. Nice. =)

--
a.b. murray

Re:+5

[DaveAtFraud]

I clicked around on the mouthpiece (thanks to tomhudson for posting it) that routes SCO's FUD. I ran across the following under their terms and conditions:

"Member is responsible for the content and accuracy of all news copy and other information submitted by it. Because of the volume of information and copy submitted to PR Newswire, PR Newswire cannot be responsible for verifying any facts contained therein. Member represents and warrants to PR Newswire that (i) it has the right to deliver to PR Newswire all information and copy submitted to it, (ii) it will comply with all applicable laws, rules and regulations, including but not limited to the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 and laws relating to "spam", and (iii) no information or copy submitted by Member will contain any content that is obscene, libelous, slanderous or otherwise defamatory, false or misleading or which violates any copyright, right of privacy or publicity or other right of any person. Member shall indemnify and hold harmless PR Newswire, its affiliated companies and its third party vendors, including distributors, from and against any and all claims, losses, damages, liabilities, costs and expenses (including reasonable attorney's fees) arising out of or relating to any breach by Member of the foregoing representations and warranties or otherwise arising out of or relating to the contents or nature of copy and other information provided by Member.

(emphasis mine)

I suggest that Bruce and Eric file a complaint with PR Newswire that Darl and SCO are not complying with their terms and conditions.

Re:+5

[ripcrd]

> It is not yours, has never been >yours, and will >never be yours.

You can pry it from my cold, dead hands.

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."

Re:How can one steal lines of code?

[notasheep]

So, tell me what phrasing you'd use to illustrate someone "taking" an idea you had. You cleary couldn't say:

"Hey, he stole my idea and got the promotion!"
"You borrowed my idea and got the promotion."

You couldn't even say:

"Hey! That was my idea!" - because everyone on Slashdot knows you can't own an idea.

So...what do you say?

Re:How can one steal lines of code?

[EmbeddedJanitor]

This is just word selection for emotive value.

Words like "steal" and "IP theft" sound much more evil than "copy" or "clone".

Re:How can one steal lines of code?

[BigBadBri]

Specious crap.

Why else would there be a law against theft, and a law of copyright?

If you could make copyright infringement equivalent to theft, there would not be a need for copyright law.

You're indulging in trollish sophistry.

Get back under your bridge.

Re:How can one steal lines of code?

[Christianfreak]

* tin-foil hat *
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.

It didn't say that before but the Republicans used the PATRIOT act to force them to put it in their after the RIAA and SCO lobbied for the action. Oh and the whole terrorist attack thing was set up so that SCO and the RIAA and Bush could get the PATRIOT through Congress

*/ tin-foil hat*

(note to mods: this is intended as humourous sarcasm)

Re:How can one steal lines of code?

[RevMike]

Other posters have pointed out that the dictionary does not preclude this application of the word steal.

Another way of thinking about it is "deprive the owner of the full value by illegal means."

For instance, you have a bank account, but you don't have a pile of cash sitting in a box in the bank vault. Your bank account is really an entry in the bank's database. If I were to fraudulently reduce the number representing your balance in your entry in the database, and then increase the number representing the balance in my own entry, I have not physically taken anything away from you. All I did was change some data in a database. But I reduced your ability to draw money from the bank through fraud, and so I stole from you.

Likewise, if I copy something from you illegally and sell or give it away, and that something is valuable because it is scarce, I've stolen from you since I illegally reduced the price you could get if you were to sell your item.

Re:How can one steal lines of code?

[rking]

If I were to fraudulently reduce the number representing your balance in your entry in the database, and then increase the number representing the balance in my own entry, I have not physically taken anything away from you. All I did was change some data in a database. But I reduced your ability to draw money from the bank through fraud, and so I stole from you.

This is not true. In this instance you have defrauded the bank, but you haven't stolen anything from me. Before your action the bank owed me a certain sum of money and after your action the bank still owes me the exact same sum of money. You may have inconvenienced me greatly and maybe even cause me financial loss if I cna't demonstrate convincingly the correct amount I'm owed but you haven't "stolen" from me.

Likewise, if I copy something from you illegally and sell or give it away, and that something is valuable because it is scarce, I've stolen from you since I illegally reduced the price you could get if you were to sell your item.

No, you haven't. Just like if you come around to my house and smash all the windows you will have reduced the value of my house but you won't have "stolen" either the house or the windows. Just because an act is criminal and involves financial loss does not make it theft.

Re:How can one steal lines of code?

[Alsee]

First, as for theft allow me to quote the US Supreme Court:

"the rights of a copyright holder are `different' from the rights of owners of other kinds of property...the copyright holder owns only a bundle of intangible rights which can be infringed, but not stolen or converted... It follows that interference with copyright does not easily equate with theft, conversion or fraud."

As for SCO's claims, they are constantly changing and vauge, but as far as I can tell SCO appears to have backed off from actual claims copying. SCO is spreading tons of FUD and confusion, but it seems that their case is based entirely on a contract dispute with IBM and a ludacris interpretation of "derivative work".

-

Re:How can one steal lines of code?

[Alsee]

gee Alsee. if you had REAL research skill, you'd cite the case that came from. Then again, since you spend all your time posting to slashdot, you probably indeed have no research skills.

Moron.

Dowling v. United States, 473 U.S. 207 (1985)

In contrast, the Government's theory here would make theft, conversion, or fraud equivalent to wrongful appropriation of statutorily protected rights in copyright. The copyright owner, however, holds no ordinary chattel. A copyright, like other intellectual property, comprises a series of carefully defined and carefully delimited interests to which the law affords correspondingly exact protections. "Section 106 of the Copyright Act confers a bundle of exclusive rights [473 U.S. 207, 217] to the owner of the copyright," which include the rights "to publish, copy, and distribute the author's work." Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc. v. Nation Enterprises, 471 U.S. 539, 546 -547 (1985). See 17 U.S.C. 106. However, "[t]his protection has never accorded the copyright owner complete control over all possible uses of his work." Sony Corp. v. Universal City Studios, Inc., 464 U.S. 417, 432 (1984); id., at 462-463 (dissenting opinion). For example, 107 of the Copyright Act "codifies the traditional privilege of other authors to make `fair use' of an earlier writer's work." Harper & Row, supra, at 547. Likewise, 115 grants compulsory licenses in nondramatic musical works. Thus, the property rights of a copyright holder have a character distinct from the possessory interest of the owner of simple "goods, wares, [or] merchandise," for the copyright holder's dominion is subjected to precisely defined limits.

It follows that interference with copyright does not easily equate with theft, conversion, or fraud. The Copyright Act even employs a separate term of art to define one who misappropriates a copyright: "`Anyone who violates any of the exclusive rights of the copyright owner,' that is, anyone who trespasses into his exclusive domain by using or authorizing the use of the copyrighted work in one of the five ways set forth in the statute, `is an infringer of the copyright.' [17 U.S.C.] 501(a)." Sony Corp., supra, at 433. There is no dispute in this case that Dowling's unauthorized inclusion on his bootleg albums of performances of copyrighted compositions constituted infringement of those copyrights. It is less clear, however, that the taking that occurs when an infringer arrogates the use of another's protected work comfortably fits the terms associated with physical removal employed by 2314. The infringer invades a statutorily defined province guaranteed to the copyright holder alone. But he does not assume physical control over the copyright; nor does he wholly deprive its owner of its use. While one may colloquially link infringement with some general notion of wrongful [473 U.S. 207, 218] appropriation, infringement plainly implicates a more complex set of property interests than does run-of-the-mill theft, conversion, or fraud.

-

Re:How can one steal lines of code?

[spitzak]

This is slightly different than the usual argument about copying music not being "stealing".

If I copied a Metallica CD and then somehow was able to use that copy to claim that I wrote and performed and copyrighted that music and that anybody wanting copies must deal with me, then I have in fact "stolen" something.

Re:How can one steal lines of code?

[SillySlashdotName]

So you are saying the lawyers and legislators never make bad laws?

Or are you saying they never make laws that are not needed?

Explain to me again why we have a Supreme Court whose purpose is to determine the constitutionallity of laws and overturn those that were passed by lawyers and legislators, but are not constitutional?

Nice use of big words, though.

Examples of stupid laws :

AZ You may not have more than two dildos in a house

CA You are not permitted to wear cowboy boots unless you already own at least two cows.

ID Residents may not fish from a giraffe's back.

IN A man over the age of 18 may be arrested for statutory rape if the passenger in his car is not wearing her socks and shoes, and is under the age of 17.

KY It is illegal to transport an ice cream cone in your pocket.

MA It is illegal to frighten a pigeon.

ME Shoelaces must be tied while walking down the street.

NM It's forbidden for a female to appear unshaven in public

NY Women may go topless in public, providing it is not being used as a business.
The penalty for jumping off a building is death.

OH It's illegal to catch mice without a hunting license

TN Driving is not to be done while asleep
The age of consent is 16, but 12 if the girl is a virgin
It is legal to gather and consume roadkill
Illegal for a woman to drive a car unless there is a man either running or walking in front of it waving a red flag to warn approaching motorists and pedestrians

UT It is illegal to detonate any nuclear weapon. You can have them, but you just can't detonate them.

WV It is legal for a male to have sex with an animal as long as it does not exceed 40 lbs
Roadkill may be taken home for supper.

By the way, I assume the reason why the age of consent is 12 in TN if the girl is a virgin, is that there are no 12 y.o. girls that are still virgin in TN!

Re:How can one steal lines of code?

[BigBadBri]

Nope = I wasn't trying to claim that the legislators never make bad laws.

It was just an attempt to make the distinction between physical goods and 'intellectual property' clear.

Your list of silly laws is quite impressive - but the question is: how many of these were passed as primary legislation, and how many were slipped into other bills as a joke by the more witty of the state legislators?

Sophistry and specious aren't very big words - they're just uncommon. Me - I use them because I'm egregious ;=).

Let's make this a press release!

[mflaster]

Is anyone or their linux-related company a member of any wire associations? Some anti-FUD articles really need to be filed as a press release, specifically mentioning SCOX.

Right now, if you go to Yahoo, and search for news on SCOX, you only find their press releases. We need to get some of our opinions out there so they'll show as news on SCO!

Can anyone help? Doesn't this seem like an important thing to do??

Mike

Re:Let's make this a press release!

[realdpk]

We need facts, not opinions. Otherwise, that seems like a really great idea. I don't think it costs much to have a press release run, like $100?

Re:Let's make this a press release!

[Anonymous Coward]

...it's not like they attempted to legally rape a 12 year old girl.

No, SCO is more interested in raping a (nearly) 12 year old operating system.

Re:Let's make this a press release!

[schon]

We need facts, not opinions.

Why? Lack of facts hasn't stopped SCO - why should it stop us? :o)

Re:Let's make this a press release!

[skogs]

I agree. There does seem to be a depressing amount of uninformed or misinformed people running around. I recently talked to one of the new computer admins in my shop. Hes a really young guy, and obviously just learning how to administer his own trip to the urinal...but he was asking other questions about networking and VPN tunneling. He brought up how he's got something to do with SCO back home...

We chuckled and told him to stay as far away from SCO as humanly possible. He is 'in the industry' and yet he did not know a thing about it. innocense is bliss.

Re:Let's make this a press release!

[stratjakt]

Thing is, to successfully issue a press release, the press has to give a shit who you are.

Case in point, I ran out of Pop Tarts this morning and held a press conference about it and my plans to get some more at Super Fresh, but hardly anyone showed up - except for C-SPAN.

Re:Let's make this a press release!

[PenguinPooper]

No it's the RIAA thats after 12 year old girls.

Re:Let's make this a press release!

[Zathrus]

I agree on the facts bit, but that hasn't stopped SCO from doing press releases. I'd honestly like to see ESR follow up on the "slanderous" bits from the response statement and take SCO to court though -- except that he'd have to foot the bill himself while McBride can use the corporate lawyers of SCO. Not a good case.

As for doing a press release -- it may not cost much, but unless you're a publicly listed company or some other well known entity (research/consulting group, non-profit group, etc. -- with the emphasis on "well known") it won't do you any good. There's a ton of cranks out there putting out press releases daily on everything from UFOs to perpetual motion machines.

The reality is that Redhat, SuSE, IBM, Novell, or some other large company would have to put out the press release to do any good. Redhat and IBM are currently engaged in legal actions and aren't likely to do so, since it could be used as evidence at that point. SuSE could, but being a foreign company it would largely be ignored by the US press and financial media (that whole "well known" bit). Novell seems to have backed out of the case after dropping a bombshell (and a dud -- which was rather embarassing for them I'm sure).

I'm sure there's other outlets available -- research groups and major trade or mainstream papers seem the most obvious -- but they're still fairly inaccessible.

Re:Let's make this a press release!

[grub]

Hahaha! Very funny, short and with a good punch at the end. Cheers!

Re:Let's make this a press release!

[mflaster]

Thing is, to successfully issue a press release, the press has to give a shit who you are.

This is not true. If you subscribe to a service, and submit a press release, the wire services will pick it up. When I had a small company, we issued press releases. We paid our couple hundred bucks, our press release got out.

It's different than holding a news conference.

Re:Let's make this a press release!

[mflaster]

But whenever a company is being sued for some kind of securities fraud - you always see all the law firms issuing press releases that they are launching class action suits.

These are not huge companies issuing releases, and yet they show up with the target company's news listings.

Re:Let's make this a press release!

[lowy]

It was reported earlier today that Novell has spoken out against McBride, SCO, and their chances of winning the IBM lawsuit.

Alas, such stories don't get referenced by Yahoo! Finance and most SCO investors don't search Google News, (but should).

Re:Let's make this a press release!

[hackwrench]

Because unlike evil SCO, we are good.

Re:Let's make this a press release!

[stratjakt]

But unless anyone's heard of you and cares what you have to say, noone will read it, let alone publish it.

Unless it's a realllllllly slow news day.

Breaking news..


GUY ON SLASHDOT THINKS DARL MCBRIDE BIG FAG (AP)

blah blah blah blah

Re:Let's make this a press release!

[iabervon]

ESR and Perens can be considered, for the purposes of this particular statement, well-known, since they're referred to by name in SCO's press release.

I'd personally like to see ESR and Perens sue McBride personally, since the slanderous letter seems to be from him, rather than officially from SCO. Furthermore, McBride, unlike SCO, will probably not be bankrupt before a slander lawsuit could complete.

Re:Let's make this a press release!

[Dastardly]

But unless anyone's heard of you and cares what you have to say, noone will read it, let alone publish it.

How much editorial discretion is used on the Yahoo Finance pages? Or, do they just pick up what is on the wire perform a keyword search and add it to the news list for the appropriate stock?

Dastardly

Re:Let's make this a press release!

[Methiphisto]

Well yes, you can issue a press release. But whether any publications will print it or write about is another matter altogether.

Re:Let's make this a press release!

[MuParadigm]

"...except that he'd have to foot the bill himself while McBride can use the corporate lawyers of SCO."

Just a thought: maybe he could sue on behalf of the OSI and get Red Hat to foot the bill through the Open Source Now! fund.

Re:Let's make this a press release!

[fucksl4shd0t]

Is anyone or their linux-related company a member of any wire associations? Some anti-FUD articles really need to be filed as a press release, specifically mentioning SCOX.

PR Web is a good start. Knock yourself out. :)

Re:Let's make this a press release!

[Alsee]

I and the three other people who were watching CSPAN this morning did not particularly appreciate listening to you talk about Pop Tarts for fourty-five minutes. I almost changed the channel.

-

Re:Let's make this a press release!

[Whispers_in_the_dark]

There does seem to be a depressing amount of uninformed or misinformed people running around.

Suits me just fine. Now all I have to do is figure out which month reality will set in so I can buy a few Puts on ole' SCOX...

Re:Let's make this a press release!

[Durrik]

Simpsons' Quote:

Willi hear you, Willi don't care.

>

Re:Let's make this a press release!

[rifter]

No, it only takes $2K to get PRnewswire to carry your press release and all the automated services like yahoo will automagically list it for each company that you list in the press release. I'm sure they edit for inanity, insanity and impersonation. But ESR and co should have no problem getting a few releases out on PRnewswire and associating them with SCO if they wanted to.

Except for that bit about ponying up $2k. Unless ESR was smart and dumped that RedHat stock he got at the first opportunity. Remember, Free Software programmers that work for free are generally not very rich. Free. :)

They've copyrighted BLANK LINES!!!!

[PatSand]

Oh! My! Gawd!

They're going to go after the federal government next...there go my taxes...

And what about the "This page intentionally left blank" world?

I feel like violating some copyright...

(blank line)

(blank line)

(blank line)

If SCO wants to collect from me, I have one question: Got change for a penny?

I want my change back...

Re:They've copyrighted BLANK LINES!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

And what about the "This page intentionally left blank" world?

Any page claiming it is blank is lying.

Re:They've copyrighted BLANK LINES!!!!

[Frymaster]

it gets worse. apparently microsoft has patented ones and zeroes.

time to go back to analog i guess...

Re:They've copyrighted BLANK LINES!!!!

[stevesliva]

I would think that a "blank line" pretty accurately reflects the intellectual property of SCO. This opinion is mine, and not my employer's.

Re:They've copyrighted BLANK LINES!!!!

[Midnight Thunder]

Well, I suppose there goes the printer paper industry. With the amount of blank paper being churned out, there will be a field day.

Re:They've copyrighted BLANK LINES!!!!

[linuxbikr]

I got an extra 10 points on a C programming exam in college for writing an essay on the back of such a page explaining how the term was a paradox.

I wish I could've gotten a copy of the exam paper and framed it.

Re:They've copyrighted BLANK LINES!!!!

[dacarr]

This comment intentionally left blank.

Re:They've copyrighted BLANK LINES!!!!

[Sri Lumpa]

"it gets worse. apparently microsoft has patented ones and zeroes."

Yes but India has some prior art over zeroes.

Re:They've copyrighted BLANK LINES!!!!

[Alsee]

-

THIS PAGE ACCIDENTALLY LEFT BLANK

lameness filter, capitals, yada yada yada
-

Re:They've copyrighted BLANK LINES!!!!

[Physics Dude]

Nope... I'm converting all my hardware and software to use the letters "I" and "O". An "O" will be represented in my computers by a low logic level and an "I" will be represented by a high logic level. ;)

Re:They've copyrighted BLANK LINES!!!!

[Salsaman]

I hope you also pointed out, that as it was a C exam, it should have said:

This page intentionally left (char *)NULL;

MOD PARENT UP

[aridhol]

The average investor only sees one side of this story. We need more coverage of our side.

Re:MOD PARENT UP

[tomhudson]

Do you really give a shit about some stupid investor who is too lazy to do any research losing his/her money? I'd say they're just nominating themselves for the financial equivalent of the darwin awards.

Sort of like SCO.

The average investor doesn't see this at all. This is why SCO has to do so much blustering. Everyone's heard of Linux, but almost nobody outside the industry knows wtf SCO is anymore.

Here's what happens with joe average
Q: What's Linux?
A: Oh, that's that new operating system Microsoft's scared of
Q: What's SCO?
A: What?
Q: What's SCO?
A: Sorry, I don't understand. What did you say>
Q: What's SCO?
A: Scow? Some kind of boat or dingy. (Right in a sense, if it's really leaky)

Re:MOD PARENT UP

[aridhol]

I don't really care about investors who don't take the time to research their purchases. However, these investors are feeding the FUD machine that is SCO. If they weren't there to keep giving SCO money, how would they be able to pay the lawyers?

SCO is not the problem. Canopy is.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

blank lines?

[chochos]

Does this mean I have to remove all the blank lines from all my code to avoid being sued by SCO?

Re:blank lines?

[bucklesl]

Don't worry, you can still use Courier New when you print out your program to hand in.

Re:blank lines?

[pyrrhonist]

Yes, and in order to keep the code readable without blank lines, you have to rewrite everything in Python.

Re:blank lines?

[Wireless Joe]

Does this mean I have to remove all the blank lines from all my code to avoid being sued by SCO?

That depends on where you find your precedents.

Re:blank lines?

[Dalcius]

Well, didn't someone copywrite a music track of silence?

Friend, anything can happen... ;)

Re:blank lines?

[ndecker]

I will release a line with 4 spaces under GPL tomorrow. To replace SCOs code use sed -e 's/^$/ /'

Re:blank lines?

[darkov]

Does this mean I have to remove all the blank lines from all my code to avoid being sued by SCO?

No, you have to add the lines into your code and pay the license fee in order to not get sued. The code you are writing right now is probably SCO's IP.

Re:blank lines?

[McLoud]

Youshouldbecarefullandstopusinganywhitespace

Re:blank lines?

[calethix]

" Does this mean I have to remove all the blank lines from all my code to avoid being sued by SCO?"

Don't forget those pesky newlines and comments too.

Any ideas?

[barcodez]

I wonder if anyone has an opinion of how long this SCO thing will go on for. It seems only to benefit sco that they drag it on for as long as possible. That way the can continue to try and collect fees, get coverage in the news and inflate their share price. How can they be silenced if they don't want to discuss matters sensibly?

Re:Any ideas?

[Anonymous Coward]

which begs the question. when it's all over if they lose do they have to give the money back???

Re:Any ideas?

[Ralph Yarro]

which begs the question. when it's all over if they lose do they have to give the money back???

Probably they won't have to repay any licence fees, at least not unless they're separately sued by the fee payers which is unlikely to happen. Those paying the fees know, or should know, that the case is unproven. SCO have been very careful to advise potential licencees to consult their own attorneys etc.

However, the end result of the IBM countersuit and the Red Hat suit is likely to extinguish any cash or other assets SCO has, whether form Linux licences or anywhere else, if SCO does lose. The arguable damage to those businesses is going to be massive and SCO just won't have that sort of money. And quite right too, if they aren't legally in the right then they deserve to lose everything over this.

Of course, dividends already paid out to investors and money paid to, for example, other Canopy companies for legitimate services is another matter entirely. I'm sure we'd all agree that that shouldn't be affected and that they should be allowed the proceeds of their legitimate investments.

Ralphie Yarro

Re:Any ideas?

[rkhalloran]

They obviously want to drag this out long enough for their options to mature so they can cash out; McSlime has already said 'a buyout would make this all go away'. I just assume IBM doesn't want to get any SCO-stink on them.

"I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure." - Aliens

Re:Any ideas?

[jd]

It'd be easy to settle this very quickly. Get a court order in the US, which restricts SCO's comments. It should be easy, now they've libelled both Bruce Perens and Eric Raymond. The First Amendment doesn't protect companies that much, and is probably even more restrictive on legal issues.

That SCO was fined recently for remarks on a German website is "technically" irrelevent, in the sense that it's a decision by courts elsewhere. However, no judge is going to be overly merciful towards those who are openly in contempt of court. (And aren't big, powerful and rich.)

I think it likely that even the threat of a gagging order would force SCO to either put up or shut up. SCO, right now, are simply trying to use threats to get cash on the cheap. Once that supply is put at risk, they won't have that choice. No threats, no income, and therefore no reason to continue the action, unless it's actually put on trial.

Re:Any ideas?

[hackstraw]

I wonder if anyone has an opinion of how long this SCO thing will go on for. It seems only to benefit sco that they drag it on for as long as possible.

Yes, it does benefit SCO to continue dragging this out. Check out sec.gov's info on the very regular and systematic selling of stocks by SCO execs. I don't know the details, but I have heard that there is some law that says something to the effect that insider trading is not able to be detected as insider trading so long as small regular sellings are done.

The top execs are dumping ~3% or so of thier stock at a time, and would like to keep the price inflated for as long as possible.

Re:Any ideas?

[platypus]

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.

Re:Any ideas?

[71thumper]

This is actually one of the things that concerns me the most. We can talk about minor details all we want, but the fact that they are selling stock is a big thing.

If they are found to be "pumping and dumping" these guys will go to jail. We know that, and they know that. I don't know too many folks who enjoy going to jail.

These guys are in fact betting their personal freedom that this is not a baseless claim. That's why I don't rule SCO's claim out at this time.

Re:Any ideas?

[Grotus]

A few helpful links from Google.

Re:Any ideas?

[Malcontent]

Zowie!. They have asked for...

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.

Man this alone ought to scare the crap out of them or send them running to the shredder.

Re:Any ideas?

[Oper Sorcerer]

I have written a script that will tell how long this will go on ...
Lather
Rinse
Repeat
oh wait ...

Joseph Goebbels aka Darl MacBride....

[pirhana]

This guy along with a buch of thuggers are reapeating what Goebbels had done in Nazi Germany. Just reapeat the lies again and again and it will pay off. I wish they have the same fate as Nazis at the end of all these.

Re:Joseph Goebbels aka Darl MacBride....

[Life2Short]

Thank God that Leni Riefenstahl died Monday night, or Darl would have gotten her to create a new "Triumph of the Will."

Maybe it time to start working on HURD

[acomj]

Or BSD.. or that open Beos..

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

I like linux and all, but I'm
very very tired of SCO..

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.

Re:Maybe it time to start working on HURD

[Dalcius]

Except that SCO is going after the entire method of FS/OSS development.

Diversity is great, I agree, but don't fool yourself.

Re:Maybe it time to start working on HURD

[pyrrhonist]

BSD is dying, and the GNU Hurd will be finished Real Soon Now.

Re:Maybe it time to start working on HURD

[molarmass192]

Don't think for one second the ass monkeys at SCO wouldn't claim something similar against "the next big thing". What's needed here is a crushing defeat of SCO (I mean losing in court, fines, delisting, bankruptcy, and SEC criminal charges) to discourage any copy-cat claims in the future.

The problem is that the court system is notoriously slow and SCO is milking that lag to the best of it's ability. SCO's day in court will come in April 2005 and they're going to get slaughtered but until then the best we can do is to keep refuting any evidence they leak or make public and keep our cool. There's an old saying that "it's the quiet ones you have to watch out for" and I fully expect IBM to prove that true in 2005.

Re:Maybe it time to start working on HURD

[purdue_thor]

ROFL! Hurd. Hah. You made my day!

I stumbled on this a while back -- it's Linus' Usenet announcement of Linux back in 1991. But the part that's priceless is:

I can (well, almost) hear you asking yourselves "why?". Hurd will be out in a year (or two, or next month, who knows)

That was 1991! Nowadays Linux is running on everything from the biggest computer systems in the world (3rd fastest supercomputer (unclassified) in the world is running Linux -- here) to people's Tivos and PS2s.

Re:Maybe it time to start working on HURD

[i_r_sensitive]

True enough.

The tone and trend has been less and less about issues which _MIGHT_ be legitimate with IBM, or whomsoever, and more and more about slandering the leading lights of the OSS movement.

Given this general trend I half expect Darl to start casting aspersions on ESR's mom, RTS's mom, etc. etc.

<Tongue_firmly_in_cheek>After all, the depleted morals of these individuals could only be the result of their upbringing.</Tongue_firmly_in_cheek>

Re:Maybe it time to start working on HURD

[Dr.Zap]

Yeah, SCO won't be sueing about the HURD until it's stable and has some deep pockets attached they can rummage through. They do own all OS's, just ask Darl...

Re:Maybe it time to start working on HURD

[Paladin128]

If they win against Linux, what makes you think BSD isn't next? If BSD falls, there goes MacOS X. They'll probably try to claim ownership of running a POSIX-style OS on a microkernel, crushing HURD next.

I don't think SCO will win, but if they do, either 1) IBM will squish them with their patent portfolio, or 2) they'll go after everyone else. It's stupid to switch your OS just based on the potential threat of one stupid company.

Re:Maybe it time to start working on HURD

[TWX]

"It's stupid to switch your OS just based on the potential threat of one stupid company."

Are you saying that my leaving Windows for Linux makes me stupid?

*grin*

Godwin's Law!

[*weasel]

this one's done, next thread!

Doing their work for them

[j_dot_bomb]

I wonder if SCO intends all this publicity and open source community reply to do their work for them. Meaning: They dont know things like the lineage of certain code, so some of what they say is to get people to dig for them. Think of how much it would cost to figure some of these things out if you were paying people to do so.

Re:Doing their work for them

[pmz]

I wonder if SCO intends all this publicity and open source community reply to do their work for them.

I don't think so. There is absolutely nothing that SCO can do to harm Linux. Even if one version of Linux is found to be truly infringing, you will witness Linux mutate almost overnight into something non-infringing. It will become widely known, eventually, exactly what SCO's beef is, and, whatever it is, the OSS communitiy will evolve and make SCO look like a foolish loser for even trying. Even if it is a fork of the 2.2 kernels, there will always be a way out.

Re:Doing their work for them

[Cy Guy]

I wonder if SCO intends all this publicity and open source community reply to do their work for them.

Ironically that would be the true open source solution to the issue.

But my biggest concern is that at 7.5 cents per line of alleged copyright violation, even if the community ultimately ID's 100 lines of code inadvertantly included in Linux, it could mean SCO seeking $7.50 per license, and with the current copyright law they could then go after significant penalties and legal costs far in excess of that - even after the offending code is replaced.

Re:Doing their work for them

[darkov]

I wonder if SCO intends all this publicity and open source community reply to do their work for them.

I think you've hit on something there: McBride is actually the biggest Slshodot troll of all time! Well done Darl.

Re:Doing their work for them

[Crispy Critters]

"But my biggest concern is that at 7.5 cents per line of alleged copyright violation, even if the community ultimately ID's 100 lines of code inadvertantly included in Linux, it could mean SCO seeking $7.50 per license, and with the current copyright law they could then go after significant penalties and legal costs far in excess of that"

Huh? I have been reading pretty thoroughly about SCO stuff, and this is the first I have seen mention of a fine at 7.5 cents per line per copy. Googling turns up zilch. Could you provide a reference?

Re:Doing their work for them

[wils0n]

No doubt it would cost quite a bit.

However, this fiasco is good for the OSS community because it is going through an exercise of contending with some thorny IP issues and ultimately the sturdiness of the GPL.

If the community uses this opportunity to learn more about auditing code and its genealogy it will be better prepared to deal with the next challenger, who will most likely be a bit more savvy than SCO.

parse_dir()

[hackstraw]

grep -r '^\s*$' * | wc -l

Shell independant, most likely much faster and easier to remember and type for future uses. I belive that the -r flag is only available for GNU grep.

Re:parse_dir()

[GPB]

Use "grep -c" instead of "wc -l" to count lines. Also you can do *.[chS] instead of the "-o -name" stuff.

-B

I don't see how they would've stolen it...

[jonathan_the_ninja]

Linux is an open-source project. Therefore, not funded by a bunch of people buying it. So where would they get the money to pay somebody to steal the code, anyway?

Brucey here sure has enough dough to make a decent security, unless, of course, it was to be penetrated by an elite ninja, like me, heh heh.

Re:I don't see how they would've stolen it...

[Anonymous Coward]

FWIU (From What I Understand) IBM has apparently contributed code that IBM developed (in conjunction with AIX). When IBM licenced unix to create aix, IBM had a special clause put in stating that IBM own's the changes to it's codebase... SCO doesn't understand the legal jargon in IBM's licence and thus thinks that the code contributed by IBM is proprietary unix code (it was developed supposedly on aix for aix). The linux kernel hackers didn't steal the code they mearly accepted code in good faith from IBM (or one of its employees).

"Warwick Toomey" should be Warren Toomey

[Colin Douglas Howell]

One of the submitters to this article got Warren Toomey's name wrong.

Re:"Warwick Toomey" should be Warren Toomey

[schon]

Warwick? Don't worry, it's just a small error. :o)

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:How meaningful.

[Anonymous Coward]

and don't forget the useful comments that often accompany some of these common lines, e.g.:

/* increment i by one */
i++;

Re:How meaningful.

[pmz]

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

How many of these words appear in any English sentence:

- the
- and
- not
- their
- fish
- copyright
- SCO are a bunch of stupid crack whores

No one can claim copyright over "int i;" or even something as complex as "memset(data, 0, sizeof(data));".

Re:How meaningful.

[WebMasterJoe]

I'm just hoping SCO never wrote a "Hello World" program, otherwise some lawyers may raid my freshman course records and have me arrested in six languages.

Re:How meaningful.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not an impressive way to measure plaguerism.

Not an impressive way to spell plagiarism.

Re:How meaningful.

[pla]

Is there some reason this kind of comment doesn't get modded redundant.

Presumeably because /.'s editors would need to declare themselves redundant, for posting yet another SCO story?


I've seen one of these on every single SCO story

Well then, you need a life. I couldn't even count all the FPs on SCO, nevermind track similar comments between them.


I bet this karma whore has even use this comment before.

Feel free to check my posting history. It may not count as an original thought, but I did think of it, all by my lonesome, in response to the quote I gave from the main story.


Incidentally, I believe whining about poor moderation would count as redundant as well. Funny, that...

Re:How meaningful.

[einer]

So you're that asshole who's codebase I've inherited! Who the hell bothers to comment i++; ?!?!

Die in a fire.

Re:How meaningful.

[pla]

That one probably occurs frequently, which is unfortunate, because it's typically an error.

Why post this as AC? Very good catch. I meant to have an ampersand in there (since, as written, you have it correct, "data" must exist as a pointer, so it would most likely have a size of 4 rather than the intended size of what it points to).

Trogdor Burninates Karma

[La Temperanza]

Oh SCO would just claim the virus code was their IP all along, and claim license fees from everyone who's still running it - people whose IP they can get easily as it keeps contacting their website! I've found out I cannot pass the day without reading the daily SCO item on slashdot. Dennis got into the act after Linus called his code ugly: damn, them be fightin' words!

This Comment was generated with the Comment-O-Matic for SCO Stories.

Re:Trogdor Burninates Karma

[darkov]

However, as I am not burdened with morals myself, I would like to take this opportunity to tell SCO to kiss my ass. You probably don't know how hard I laughed while reading "SCO declares GPL invalid". Isn't having an entire company full of people smoking crack in violation of the law? All your base are belong to SCO!

This Comment was generated with the Comment-O-Matic for SCO Stories.

great news

[The Pim]

This must mean that Bruce Perens isn't afraid ESR is going to shoot him anymore.

Re:great news

[Davorama]

Considering this note just down the index from there. Yeah, I guess so. I'm curious what Bruce (maybe) did to start off the exchange.

Re:great news

[finkployd]

The only things RMS, ESR or Perens and their ilk 'contribute' is rhetoric and the image of the bearded loveless hippie.

Yeah, cause what code has RMS ever written?

Finkployd

Re:great news

[Cyno]

bearded loveless hippie?

What does love mean to these people? To me it means sharing and giving and stuff. RMS might have contributed as many lines of code to the GNU project as Linus.

So if he's not loveless I guess he's just your stereotypical bearded hippie, huh. Well, hippies are cool, so what does stratjakt have against bearded people? Dunno, but he's probably a freakin racist.

Re:great news

[Cyno]

Wow, I had no idea Bruce Perens was such a whiney brat. :)

ESR kicks ass!

Re:great news

[ArekRashan]

I'm pretty sure that ESR was just getting pissy because Perens made his objections to the Apple Public Source License v1.0 public without contacting ESR or OSI first. OSI was working with Apple on the APSL at the time.

Re:great news

[hdparm]

What a load of crap. I'm not sure what your problem is but adding you to the list of my foes some time ago was a good move.

Re:SCO is not the problem. Canopy is.

[Ralph Yarro]

Canopy own SCO. Darl McBride can't take a dump without Ralph J. Yarro's approval. FUD. Darl's contract permits him considerable leeway so far as dumping is concerned, provided that it is on Linux developers.

Don't forget "{" and "}"...

[Anonymous Coward]

You see an awfully lot of them alone on a line, too...

Re:Don't forget "{" and "}"...

[Mr. Sketch]

Probably millions of them, hence all the millions of lines of code that Linux illegally copied from SCO. It's all the {'s and }'s, now their entire case becomes clear.

Re:Is it Wednesday already?

[anotherone]

Don't you mean, "It's 2:45, time for another SCO story!"

I'm Sonna Sue SCO!!!

[Mnemennth]

I have in my possession an 8" floppy containing 73,000 empty lies of code, borrowed from my desk during negotiations with SCO for my CP/M floppy disk defragging utility!
NO! You can't SEE the disk! Well, mabe a picture of it...

*Cackle*

Mnem

Re:I'm Sonna Sue SCO!!!

[StenD]

73,000 empty lies of code

Freudian typo?

Re:I'm Sonna Sue SCO!!!

[Mnemennth]

"73,000 empty lies of code" - Freudian typo?

Ummm... no... that WAS deliberate... LOL

I meant "Sonna" and "mabe"... Ghaaaahhh... even when I screw up I can't win for losing.

Mnem
"I am a living experiment in Murphy's Law."

Re:I'm Sonna Sue SCO!!!

[Just Some Guy]

Well, mabe a picture of it...

Be sure to re-write the label in a Greek font first.

farrago?

[El]

farrago Ok, now I'll admit ESR has a bigger vocabulary than I do!

Re:farrago?

[stratjakt]

Nah, that's an incredibly obscure word, and he didn't even use it in a 100% proper context.

A sure sign of a hack writer using a thesaurus.

Re:farrago?

[iggymanz]

or a sign of someone who knows latin (his use is proper)

Bruce Perens...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm already a fan of this guy; when does slashcode come up with something that is more fitting so I can 'upgrade' my profile on him?

Imho this guy deserves a medal. Being attacked by a lying snake like that, and still keeping up good manners. Bravo.

When you are in a hole...stop digging....

[Lord Custos]

Rather than defend the "don't ask, don't tell" Linux intellectual property policy that caused the SCO v IBM case, the Open Source community should focus on customers' needs. The Open Source community should assure that Open Source software has a solid intellectual property foundation that can give confidence to end users. - Darl McBride.

Darl, Darl, Darl...haven't you ever heard the adage "When you are in a hole, stop digging"?
You could climb out of the hole you dug yourself into. But you decided to spew more slander, libel and FUD instead.
Back in July, we offered you a firemans ladder
In August, we threw down a rope.
Are we going to have to send down spelunkers, or should we wait until you pop up in China?
(By the way, Darl, you don't want to end up in China. Thats a Linux country.)

Re:When you are in a hole...stop digging....

[dmaxwell]

At this point we should start chucking in anvils.

Re:When you are in a hole...stop digging....

[HotNeedleOfInquiry]

Or boiling oil.

Re:When you are in a hole...stop digging....

[NecroPuppy]

Or flesh eating shrews.

Re:When you are in a hole...stop digging....

[gaj]

No no no ...

Just run a garden hose over to the hole ...

... after all, scum usually rises to the surface of water, right?

Re:When you are in a hole...stop digging....

[red floyd]

Sorry, but I believe Wiley E. Coyote (Super Genius) and the ACME corporation have a patent on that.

Re:When you are in a hole...stop digging....

[derfel]

Would that be Hilary Rosen, Carly Fiorina, and Hillary Clinton?

Re:When you are in a hole...stop digging....

[TC (WC)]

Darl, Darl, Darl...haven't you ever heard the adage "When you are in a hole, stop digging"?

Homer: We'll dig our way out!
Wiggum: No, no, dig up, stupid!

Indemnity

[chmilar]

I think the paragraph on "indemnity" is interesting.

SCO should offer, to those who purchase their license, this guarantee of indemnity:

SCO guarantees that all IP associated with the SCO license is the sole, undisputed property of SCO. Should said property be shown to be actual property of a third party, SCO will pay all legal fees, rememdies and any other fees associated with any dispute arising from the third party.

Thus, SCO would show that they are certain they haven't infringed on GPL'd code (or any other party's code).

If SCO is unwilling to make such a guarantee of indemnity, it shows that they don't believe their own case.

Re:Indemnity

[StenD]

SCO could do that, without taking any risk. Since the SCO license only grants the right to use SCO IP, it doesn't claim to be granting the right to use non-SCO IP. That's probably what took so long for the license to come out - the lawyers had to be sure that the license wouldn't become fraudulent when SCO loses its case.

Re:Indemnity

[phrostie]

how about offering indemnify to all the stock holders that were con'd into thinking scox was worth more than $0.78. he can pay it out of what he has earned out of his stock sales. maybe even do the same for those unix licences.

A "DNA sequencing" tool may help to prove SCO wron

[Iphtashu Fitz]

Check out this article on eWeek about an interesting utility that Eric Raymond, the president of the Open Source Initiative, recently developed. It uses a method similar to DNA sequencing to analyze the history of a collection of source code trees. Mr. Raymond is quoted in the article as saying "I am grinning a grin that should frighten the thieves and liars at SCO out of a week's sleep."

Three cheers!

[lord_paladine]

A very well thought out and presented response. Someone buy this guy a beer!

GNU System V ?

[dostalgic]

Wouldn't it be poetic justice if the courts find that contamination went the other way, i.e., that System V contains Linux code and must be redistributed under GNU as a Linux variant. Just dreaming :)

Re:GNU System V ?

[deadmongrel]

I think something close happened like that with BSD vs AT&T but the problem was settled out of court.

Re:GNU System V ?

[spitzak]

No, you are playing into the Microsoft anti-GPL FUD.

The worst that could happen is that SystemV would need to have the infringing code removed.

Now it is just barely possible that they would decide it would be easier to make the infringing code legal by just GPL'ing the entire program. But, unlike what Microsoft claims, they are under no obligation to.

Barratry, anyone? Extortion?

[TellarHK]

Would the conduct SCO has been engaging in to this point be enough to qualify for a charge of barratry? They've moved to provide no legal basis, are refusing all good will efforts to negotiate, and have engaged in a form of corporate slander of the worst sort. I would think that with the intensely corporation-friendly legal system we have here in the US, that there must be some method by which IBM and other vendors such as SGI and Linux distributors could make some pretty substantial claims of interference or possibly even extortion. Hell, if I recieved a bill from SCO, I'd most likely contact the feds to look into charging SCO with extortion - they're sending a bill for something they can't prove they own, and threatening consequences if I don't pay.

Re:Barratry, anyone? Extortion?

[Vivieus]

Shouldn't it be possible to file a motion to supress ("gag order"), so that SCO isn't allowed to talk about the case in the media anymore?

Of course, that would mean that everyone has to stop talking about it, but I don't think it would hurt our side too much, I mean, IBM and RedHat don't really talk much about it publicly. Sure, it would also mean /. loses about a story a day. ;)
But, at last SCO would have to stop its FUD campaign.

Re:Barratry, anyone? Extortion?

[Scrooge919]

Well, IANAL, but it seems to me that if SCO sent out all those invoices on completely baseless claims, that's mail fraud... 1000s and 1000s of instances of mail fraud... Enough to land some people in federal prison...

I can hear the judge now...

"In light of the senselessness of these heinous crimes that you have committed, I hereby sentence you to a term of no less than 4 years in a federal 'pound me in the ass' prison. Darl McBride, you've lead a trite and meaningless life. You're a very bad person."

:)

Re:Barratry, anyone? Extortion?

[110010001000]

Yes, interesting that IBM and the other vendors have been relatively silent on the issue. No injuntions, no countersuits, etc. I wonder why? Could it be...no no, not possible

Re:Godwin's Law! - no

[renehollan]

I find the comparison of propaganda techniques used by SCO and the Nazi Minister of Propaganda not subject to Godwin's law, and actually, rather telling about the character of the players at SCO.

It is not a comparison between SCO and a Nazi regime (which would come under the thread-pruning of Godwin's Law).

In fact, I think that a propaganda technique that was effective in promoting genocide would be even more effective in helping to perpetuate a lesser crime (all other crimes, arguably, being lesser crimes than genocide).

As others have noted, SCO's propaga^H^H^H^H^Hess releases get significant exposure whereas reasoned responses from the likes of ESR, BP, et. al. get relatively little.

Well thought out????

[pulse2600]

"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."

You mean posting "$C0 $|_|x0r$" on slashdot doesn't qualify as well-thought-out?

interesting point

[aggieben]

interesting point you bring up.... instead of a simple line by line comparison, if they were really interested in seeing if any source was copied at all, maybe they should compare how many groups of 4 or more lines are the same? You're naturally going to have a lot of this:

int i;
int j;
...
...

but what about this taken all together as a single unit of comparison:

int i;
int j;
int (*f)(int arg1, char *arg2, void **data);
long long x = (v != NULL)?qd:tt;

The probability of finding common lines simply because the nature of the two code sets would decreate dramatically the more lines are grouped together. I would love to do a comparison of my own, but alas. SCO isn't interested in being forthcoming, only in market manipulation. SCO's strategy here isn't even to reconcile whatever wrongs they claim have been committed against them. Everything they're doing is simply an exit strategy. They recognized that they are history, so they're going out with a bang and getting as much [money] as they can before it the CFO signs the chapter 11 paperwork.

Re:interesting point

[pla]

instead of a simple line by line comparison, if they were really interested in seeing if any source was copied at all, maybe they should compare how many groups of 4 or more lines are the same?

Agreed, that would tend to provide somewhat more meaningful evidence, while still allowing a fully automated comparison of the code base in question.

I think, though, that this boils down to the same thing most of us have said since the start of this whole SCO mess - They don't really care about the reality of the case, the SCO execs only care about boosting stock prices long enough to slowly unload their formerly-worthless shares.

The entire "100k+ infringing lines" crap just gave them a way to leak a teensy bit more inconclusive data to the public, to keep the stock up for another month.

Sad, really. Not so much that they would resort to potentially destroying three+ other companies and the entire open source movement just to gain a few bucks - I have come to consider that as a standard business practice. Rather, because their tactics have so far worked. SCO stock has stayed fairly high during this crap, very effectively accomplishing the only sane goal Darl can possibly have. So even when they inevitably lose, they still win.

Re:interesting point

[HiThere]

I thought that it was groupings of three lines that were being compared. Seems to me that's what I read yesterday, or the day before.

Re:interesting point

[nusuth]

How about
for(i=0;in;++i)
{
instead of
int (*f)(int arg1, char *arg2, void **data);
long long x = (v != NULL)?qd:tt;
?

Re:interesting point

[aggieben]

what??

Acronym Fun

[schnarff]

I'm sure this won't get modded up high enough to ever be seen, but it's just come over me what SCO must really stand for: they're Smoking Crack, Obviously. Now we just need to get the DEA on them, since the SEC won't do the job. ;-)

"Linux topples college's IT Tower of Babel"

[eddy]

Linux marches on, despite of SCO. Data center makeover, part 1: Linux topples college's IT Tower of Babel.

Also, Dell today said they aren't and will not pay any licenses to SCO.

Sun on the other hand seems to be playing into the SCO "indemnification" FUD with a new java license?

Re:"Linux topples college's IT Tower of Babel"

[Lehk228]

Sun on the other hand seems to be playing into the SCO "indemnification" FUD with a new java license?

I Don't think Sun is playing it up so much as ensuring that SCO's Pile of Bull doesnt get on the shoes of potential customers on the way in the door

Re:I'm Gonna Sue SCO!!!

[Mnemennth]

Oh gawd... look at the typos...

I'm gonna sue my own fingers for incompetence!!!

Mnem
"To make something foolproof is impossible. Fools are just too damned inventive."

SCO secretly hires Iraqi Information Minister..

[kev0153]

Now look at SCO. Every college student knows that you must change comments and variable names of the code you copy.

This Comment was also generated with the Comment-O-Matic for SCO Stories

Firearm enthusiast not equivalent to criminal...

[Dareth]

Having read the link of this parent, that was a simple "shot acroos the bow" meant as a warning. Not all gun owners settle their disputes with guns.

I find dex weapons alot more satisfactory... Just hope he aint too handy with a bat or hocky stick... or a plain old kitchen knife. Thems the things you should worry about.

And anyone threatens me, I gently remind them if they kill me, they got to take care of my wife.

Now that is an effective threat!

O.J. Simpson Trial was Short by Comparison

[reporter]

Does anyone remember the trial of O.J. Simpson in 1991? It ran for nine months, drew on a small army of experts, and cost millions of dollars to conduct. Compared to the upcoming trial of SCO versus IBM, the Simpson trial will be considered brief and financially cheap .

UNIX has been in existance for 30+ years, and chunks of the code are very old. SCO will need to subpoena the hundreds of people who had worked on the original code in order to prove that the code originally appeared in UNIX. IBM, of course, will subpoena other writers of other chunks of the code. You will see bearded 55-year-old geeks sitting in a courtroom and waxing nostalgic about their coding experience with UNIX. This trial will last for more than a year and cost hundreds of millions of dollars.

Does SCO have the money to fight this fight?

... from the desk of the reporter

Re:A really nice response.

[winse]

Just a shame that it was co-authored by that gun-toting fucktard ESR who makes the lot of us seem like a bunch of hillbillies from Utah.

I am a hillbilly from Utah you insensitive clod.

What's the trick?

[jmv]

from http://linuxworld.com/story/34011.htm

"Magicians hate me because I always look -away- from where the misdirection is obviously pointing, and I always see the wires. I don't know enough about the politics of this whole situation to be able to tell you where to look, but I know this: Darl McBride is a master manipulator and very expert at controlling a situation. So, with his letter so obviously a troll, what is it he's got you -not- looking at? Heaven knows this man has something coming in from another direction, waiting to say "Ta daaaah!" to the shareholders. What is it?"

100+k lines not meaningful

[.@.]

The bulk number of identical lines is, as others have pointed out, meaningless.

What would be interesting would be a count of the number of consecutive identical lines.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that number would be vanishingly small. Where non-zero, it's probably because both codebases contain code licensed under the UC Regents.

A Financial analyst who recommends SCOX

[Sarvagya]

Jonathan Cohen of JHC Capital Management recommends SCOX and thinks that "The company has the ability to earn in excess of $3 a share over the next couple of years," and that " The stock, which opened Tuesday at $16.52, is inexpensive".

CNBC

Re:A Financial analyst who recommends SCOX

[blibbleblobble]

"Jonathan Cohen of JHC Capital Management recommends SCOX and thinks that "The company has the ability to earn in excess of $3 a share over the next couple of years"

This Jonathan Cohen?

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:Big problem: Press Access.

[tomhudson]

Not true. This weeks' issue of Computing Canada (industry trade mag - not a newsstand journal) has it on the front page: Canadian Linux users prepare to battle SCO. The Montreal Gazette has carried it in the business section. Google News regularly posts links to slashdot when mentioning SCO.

It's only PR Newswire that keeps spreading SCOs shit around w/o rebuttals. But then again, that's what they're paid to do.

If you're not happy w. SCOs' fud, there's nothing stopping you from calling up your local news writers and giving them the low-down :-)

Re:Big problem: Press Access.

[Nucleon500]

I wonder what we are doing wrong. Does anyone here know what must be done to get mainstream or investor press attention? Is it an issue of content (as in, we aren't off-the-wall, so we're boring) or just that we're not bugging the right people?

Re:Big problem: Press Access.

[sdcharle]

Excellent point. Any time Darl opens his mouth, you can hear about it on various financial sites, but you probably won't hear Perens' and Raymond's response except here on slashdot in the 'Amen corner'.

Re:Big problem: Press Access.

[jbottero]

I don't think we are bugging the right people. Perens and Raymond are preaching to the converted. The only place I have seen their remarks is in Linux pubs and *hard core* IT pubs. Darl makes the Seattle Times and PI every time he opens his trap.

Re:Big problem: Press Access.

[DGolden]

No, thrse days you just have to pay someone to bug (and, mostly, bribe) the right people for you - I think (could be wrong) SCO is paying Schwartz PR to run their little black propaganda campaign for them.

Re:Big problem: Press Access.

[DGolden]

Well, at time of writing, SCO is definitely on their client list, anyway...

Re:Big problem: Press Access.

[ShinmaWa]

It's only PR Newswire that keeps spreading SCOs shit around w/o rebuttals

Well.. them and Reuters

Re:Big problem: Press Access.

[Jayfar]

I call bullshit on this. The access to the press is there for the asking, but it requires some work. The United States Postal Service will cheerfully deliver press releases to any and all news agencies and individual reporters from any and all groups and individuals. Likewise the public phone network will route your followup calls to the same organizations. That newfangled Internet thingie will also deliver emailed digital press releases to news purveyors far and wide.

Re:Big problem: Press Access.

[nihilogos]

The Perens, Raymond letter is covered in this mainstream press article.

The Sydney Morning Herald is one of Australia's largest newspapers.

Re:Big problem: Press Access.

[Nucleon500]

OK, so why aren't RedHat, SuSE, the EFF, OSDL, etc. doing the same? Particularly RedHat, in the battle with ten times the cash SCO has, ought to help the OSS leaders get heard. And why isn't IBM calling attention to them?

Re:Big problem: Press Access.

[murry]

The access to news media is a systemic part of the problem for the open source community. ESR's excellent (but reactive) response to Darl's letter may not be getting equal distribution. This is a problem. It's solved by a business decision to build a proactive response capability.

Anyone with a checkbook can contract with a newswire to publish a press release that is distributed to global, national, regional and local media "circuits". Darl's open letter is a polished press release distributed for a fee by PR Newswire. Reuters picked it up on the wire because a) they have been following and reporting the story and b) it involves several publically-traded companies.

Typically, the newswires "vet" releases for inflammatory and accusatory statements, especially statements aimed at public companies. PR agencies earn their fees in part by weasel-wording flames and accusations to get by the vetting process. Darl's letter is exquisitely weasel-worded. It took time to write this letter, and it is aimed at people who do not have the deep insight and background of most open source advocates. People who populate juries. And people who invest in stocks. This letter is a substitute for positive character witnesses. It is manufactured evidence of corporate citizenship and good will. And to those who know better, it is disgusting.

In addition to use of a newswire for distribution, SCO's machine is probably also "pitching and placing" each release with a small but carefully selected group of journalists and analysts. The professional approach is to make calls and offer the release by e-mail as an exclusive or semi-exclusive, and this always grabs journalists who enjoy scooping their competitors.

Should the open source community fight fire with fire? Should ESR's response letter have been a press release distributed by a newswire, with an earnest pitch effort in advance?

I for one would applaud if OSS assembled a response center to fight fire with fire. My hand is in the air as a volunteer. My first recommendation is to shift from a reactive to proactive strategy. When you think about all the good OSS stories out there, proactive becomes highly attractive.

Re:Big problem: Press Access.

[DaveAtFraud]

Sent the following to Reuters on the assumption that it never hurts to ask:

I find the one sided coverage of SCO's claims regarding Linux and the open source community deplorable but sadly, to some extent, understandable. SCO has an excellent public relations staff to manage their story and access to news services such as PR Newswire to make their story told. On the other hand, the Linux and open source community has no such resources and rarely speaks with a single voice.

As an example, Reuters provided coverage of Darl McBride's "open letter" to the Linux community but has not covered the responses to this letter from from Linus Torvalds and from Bruce Perens and Eric S. Raymond. An on-line copy of Mr. Torvalds response can be found at this location:

http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/09/10/HNtorv al dssco_1.html

while an on-line copy of the response from Mr. Perens and Mr. Raymond can be found here:

http://linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2003- 09 -10-016-26-OS-CD-CY

I especially point you to the response from Mr. Perens and Mr. Raymond since Mr. McBride seriously misrepresented statements made by both of them in his "open letter."

I hope you find this information useful. Please let me know if there is a more effective means for responses such as these to be provided to you. Please note that this effort to bring these responses to your attention is solely on my part and has not been endorsed by any of the principals.

Best Regards,

Indemnity from IP infringement

[MSBob]

There is a very interesting factoid with regards to the IP indemnity issue that SCO likes to bring up that Eric and Bruce mention in this article:

"...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. "

Don't know about the rest of slashdot but I was not aware of this particular string. Actually I don't see why most GPL developers couldn't offer the exact same type of indemnity: refund on the purchase price in case there are IP violations. I think they should do it just to see SCO's reaction to it. Should be quite hillarious.

Re:Indemnity from IP infringement

[schon]

I don't see why most GPL developers couldn't offer the exact same type of indemnity: refund on the purchase price in case there are IP violations.

Because most GPL developers don't sell the code, however (for example) Linux distributors do. So in the (unlikely) event that there is an IP violation, Linus would get stuck with paying money to someone that paid for their linux distro. Change 'someone' with '50,000 people', and he'd be liable for a very large sum of money, of which he had no part in.

Re:Indemnity from IP infringement

[MSBob]

Well, specifically exclude the cost of the media in the "indemnity contract" and Linus is liable for exactly $0. He's still assuming liability it's just that he's liable for the cost of GPL software less the media it's distributed on :)

Stand UP!!

[CaptScarlet22]

Hello!!

I'm so sick of this crap with SCO and Linux...Why doesn't someone with POWER, take this BS claim and prove once and for all, that this claim is a lie or in fact prove; that the claim is true!

Let's get this over and done with, so everyone here can move on.

Christ, let the US government STAND UP, and take this claim . Why must we "Drag our feet" over this issue!?!?!?!?

Slow decision making cost people money and a lot of grief!!!

Someone needs to do a bias test here....

This is not good!!

CS....out

Re:Stand UP!!

[u-235-sentinel]

"I'm so sick of this crap with SCO and Linux...Why doesn't someone with POWER, take this BS claim and prove once and for all, that this claim is a lie or in fact prove; that the claim is true!"

Can't... SCO is a subsidiary of RIAA.

Reminds me of an old lawyer joke....

[HotNeedleOfInquiry]

Q) When Darl McBride is in a hole up to his neck in sand, what do you have?

A) Not enough sand.

Re:Reminds me of an old lawyer joke....

[Anonymous Coward]

Better answer: Time to get a beer while the tide rolls in.

Re:Oh, there's a rabbit, all right...

[wintermute740]

I'd agree about the redirection, but I think I like the explanation from Linux better :)

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.

The future of SCO.

[tralfamador]

It all makes sense now. SCO reminds me of my brother and I fighting over something. Normally I would have to pay top dollar for bullshit that rich and strong. Looks like the court of public opinion is speaking loud and clear.

Re:The future of SCO.

[cmdrwhitewolf]

Ahh - You found SCO's super secret future product offering: Really Cheap Fertilizer!

Mainstream press reporting of SCO maddening

[Col_Panic]

First would like to say thanks to Bruce and Eric for this response. What I would like to bitch about is that most of the points that they made in their response were things that any real journalist would have actually checked. The McBride letter got plastered all over "news" sites on the net without any real challenge to the "facts" contained within. The SCO Regime knows that "reporters" for online "magazines" pretty much cut and paste any drivel that is sent out as a corporate press release. Slap on a headline and a few "this person said"s and a couple of "according to"s and blam you have an article. (Witness how MicroSofts latest funded "study" got plastered all over.) Of the online tech "news" portals, only The Register seems to EVER bother to check any of the "facts" that are reported in these press releases. Had any real journalism been going on here, these rags would have bothered to check at least SOME of the outlandish claims that SCO makes, or at least do something like make the headline "SCO makes more outlandish claims" or gosh even remind people that SCO has yet to release anything resembling proof. But because SCO knows they can get any outlandish claims published (and they WILL be published because the companies that publish them know that MicroSoft WANTS them published) and will subsequently drive up their stock price.

It is a press release already.

[SLot]

NewsFactor already has it showing up as a press release, available here.

Re:It is a press release already.

[mflaster]

Interesting - this shows up under SGI and IBM - but not SCOX!!!!

Re:SCO is not the problem. Canopy is.

[Jordy]

Profit Pro, Recruit Search, Troll Tech and TugNut.

Whoah whoah back up. Troll Tech? The guys who make QT? The foundation of KDE?

Huh. I don't know what to say about a man who wants to kill Linux being on the board of a company that is the foundation of one of Linux's major desktop environments.

Re:AH hah!

[teamhasnoi]

I just found one of my comments immortalized by the Comment-O-Matic - "...replace the code with a big ASCII middle finger..."

I'm thinking about charging $699 per use of the Comment-O-Matic, do you think Slashdotters will pay?

If you can do it with silence...

[ChrisKnight]

Wasn't there a recent copyright dispute where one artist had a track of silence on his CD, and was sued by the estate of another artist because they claimed copyright on a track of silence?

Since that was settled out of court, I can see where SCO would think they at least had a chance of getting a settlement over the empty lines in the kernel.

Oh, shit... I have two empty lines in this post. Should I send SCO a buck?
*
*
-Chris

"Business model" et al

[EmbeddedJanitor]

Darl says OSS lacks a business model and therefore lacks value. I've seen similar comments from others too. One of the things being argued over is the term 'value'. This means different things to different people.

SCO and the like: 'value' means being able to make money out of it. OSS clearly undermines the business viability of proprietary Unix (and other OS's). Therefore from their perspective Linux has negative value.

OSS community: 'value' means having good quality, freely available software.

To make a suscessful OSS-based business (even a small one like getting a grant to do OSS development) you need to be able to get a shot at both these values. No money == no food. However, you might be prepared to do without the private jet etc.

There seems a strange mindset amongst users of OSS. They'll freely hand over a few hundred dollars to buy software, but feel screwed if they pay a single cent for "free stuff". Hopefully one day people will start freely contributing money to OSS (eg. lets say make a contribution of say 20% what they would have been prepared to pay for a commercial offering). This way the users get high quality, low cost software and the OSS folks get to eat (and keep programming).

Translation

[Roadkills-R-Us]

Wow. That's a well-crafted piece of literature. Unspecting high school freshmen will one day have to read that and dissect it as part of "US Literature". Assuming the schools can still teach reading by then.

Meanwhile, I ran the article through Babelfish:

Dear Mr. McBride,

You suck.

With all due respect,
The Open Source Community

No, BSDi is dying :)

[Jibber]

My story is in the queue. If it gets seen or not is another story.

Jib

Re:SCO is not the problem. Canopy is.

[HiThere]

My understanding is that they own something like 5% of Troll Tech. Yeah, it makes me queasy, too. But it's not like the Trolls could do anything to stop them.

Open letter to McBride

[Alizarin Erythrosin]

Over at Groklaw there is a large set of comments forming in the hopes of drafting an open letter response to McBride's. It is my hope when they are finished that the /. editors will publish the text of said letter in an effort to debunk his claims and outright lies and misquotes.

I tried to post my comment on there but for some reason it wouldn't take. I offer my services to mirror a PDF or HTML copy of the response once it is finished. I hope others would follow suit, and perhaps some of the readers here with connections can get it published on high-profile sites or even pass it along to CIO/CEO/CTO type people in an effort to dispel SCO FUD.

Re:Open letter to McBride

[Alizarin Erythrosin]

I'm using my karma bonus to get this noticed, so don't mod me up if you don't want to (not trying to karma whore, don't need more karma anyways):

They started a new set of comments related to the Darl McBride open letter response after the first one mentioned in the parent post filled up.

Hopefully insightful or informative /.-ers will contribute.

SCO does what no other vendor has ever done...

[weave]

Wow, after all the religious wars on slashdot over microsoft, linux, apple, star wars, diablo, etc, etc, we have finally found a topic that everyone agrees on -- SCO sucks.

Surely SCO must have some plants that can post some positive SCO-defending material here?!

Re:SCO does what no other vendor has ever done...

[dostalgic]

How can any self-respecting geek work for that company. Maybe those SCO employees with a conscience can apply some internal pressure. "Come out of her, my people!"

Re:SCO does what no other vendor has ever done...

[Pope Raymond Lama]

It seens that there are only lawyers left there by now.

Re:SCO does what no other vendor has ever done...

[Frobnicator]

In fact, when they were a Linux company they had almost double the work force they have now. Makes me wonder if they fired the programmers and techies, hired lawyers, and went back to work.

Re:SCO does what no other vendor has ever done...

[turnipsatemybaby]

Surely SCO must have some plants that can post some positive SCO-defending material here?! SCO has LOTS of plants. It's good stuff too... Just look at all that's happened, just from one toke!

Impressive & Professional

[__aagmrb7289]

We should all take a look at how this letter was written, and why, and try to apply it to our own comments in this forum. Thanks for the great example, guys!

stealing nothing is still stealing

[queequeg1]

the absence of any text in so many lines of code might not totally sink SCO's case. Perhaps their novel theories of IP violations are based on this recent situation.

copyrighting silence

Straight from the "Nothing surprises me anymore" department.

Re:SCO is not the problem. Canopy is.

[squiggleslash]

Yes, that one. It is not a huge stake (between Canopy directly and SCO who also possess shares in their name IIRC I believe it's less than 7%) but it's still worrying.

TrollTech needs to find someone who'll buy them out of Canopy completely.

Re:Firearm enthusiast not equivalent to criminal..

[finkployd]

True, but if you are a known firearms enthusiast, I would think you should refrain from making ANY kind of threats. (1) it just supports the stereotype of the "gun nut" and (2) people take flippant threats much more seriously when they know someone has the ability to back it up, and will (rightfully) do thinks like alert the police, etc.

Finkployd

Re:SCO is not the problem. Canopy is.

[Richard_at_work]

They own ~ 2% of Troll Tech, I somehow dont think they have the ability to do any more than anyone else who owns shares of Troll Tech.

Just to point it out....

[lysium]

That crazy gun-nut has done more for the OSS movement than you ever have or ever will, Mr. dhowells. Care to explain why you should even be compared to Utah hillbillies?

What is with the presumptive use of 'us' in your posts? Speak for yourself, and do not hide in (or speak for) a nonexistant crowd.

=========

Re:Just to point it out....

[ThyTurkeyIsDone]

That crazy gun-nut has done more for the OSS movement than you ever have or ever will, Mr. dhowells.

Not to butt in on your eloquent debate, but here's an interesting link concerning the above observation.

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

Re:File a complaint with the FTC

[MSBob]

done

Re:File a complaint with the FTC

[Bas_Wijnen]

Don't just vent your frustrations on /. where no one outside our community will hear.

What do you mean no one will hear? Didn't you know we're being watched by Microsoft (and probably some others)?

Slander? Libel?

[siskbc]

Slander is spoken. Libel is written. He's guilty of libel.

Darl also does interviews.

Re:Slander? Libel?

[john82]

Darl also does interviews.

But does he do Bar Mitzvah's and mall openinings?

Does SCO have the money to fight this fight?

[DrWhizBang]

Nope. Next question...

People don't seem to get it.

[Jahf]

Mutating Linux to remove infringing code will not remove SCO's ability to take to court the distributors of any version of Linux which infringed, -past- or present. Likewise the users of such distributions, -past- or present. Irregardless of whether the distribution was freely given away or bundled as a priced product.

I agree with you that Linux will overcome the issue if it is so proven to be real, but that will not indemnify people who have transgressed. That will likely be -extremely- costly to Linux vendors and users and will damage the adoption of Linux (whether that is a good or a bad thing depends on your view of commercializing Linux) for years to come.

However I disagree that SCO can not harm Linux. The only way the community will come out without severe damage will be if SCO's case if flatly disproven and/or is deemed invalid due to SCO having distributed Linux and/or infringing on code they didn't own -prior- to SCO's code (if it really was such) being introduced into Linux.

NOTE: I'm not saying SCO is or is not right ... that's for the courts, lawyers and experts to prove. I'm only trying to illustrate just how deeply damaging this case can be. It is even possible that anyone who can be proved to have used or distributed a 2.4 kernel may be at risk.

Besides, you don't consider the idea of reverting back to the 2.2 kernel (your extreme example) to be "harm" to Linux?

Re:People don't seem to get it.

[Malcontent]

" Mutating Linux to remove infringing code will not remove SCO's ability to take to court the distributors of any version of Linux which infringed, -past- or present. Likewise the users of such distributions, -past- or present. Irregardless of whether the distribution was freely given away or bundled as a priced product."

Where do you get this stuff from? You don't sound like a lawyer so maybe you read this someplace but I have never read anything like this anywhere. Not even on groklaw or other legal sites that follow this case closely. They all seem to indicate that the complaining party has the duty to minimize damages, not hide infringement for years and then sue people for past infringement after the infringing code gets removed.

Please site some reference backing your point of view.

SCO is sitting in a time bomb. There is about 99% certainty that they themselves have infringing code in Unixware and that they are violating the copyrights of hundreds of Linux kernel coders.

Re:People don't seem to get it.

[ananiasanom]

Mutating Linux to remove infringing code will not remove SCO's ability to take to court the distributors of any version of Linux which infringed, -past- or present.

Leaving aside the point, made elsewhere, that any such suit would be severely damaged by SCO's active refusal to attempt to mitigate the damage, have you noticed that SCO have made no move towards taking any Linux distributors to court. If they had a glimmer of a case, the distributors would be the obvious target.

Re:People don't seem to get it.

[Jahf]

A story that will likely change if they can win a couple of other suits as precedent. It's not over until SCO is no longer in existence in any form or all their cases are lost.

Dupe

[Bananenrepublik]

Are you aiming towards a career as slashdot editor?

Re:Bruce Perens

[gnutechguy]

I have to agree here. I cannot believe that Perens did not mention McBride's libel in the reposne letter.

Re:SCO is not the problem. Canopy is.

[Ralph Yarro]

They own ~ 2% of Troll Tech, I somehow dont think they have the ability to do any more than anyone else who owns shares of Troll Tech.

While I whole-heartedly agree with your general theme of "don't be so harsh on Canopy, they're okay!", in the interests of accuracy I feel I should point out it's over 5%.

Re:SCO is not the problem. Mormonism is?

[Anonymous Coward]

Every Mormon I know (and I know a few) who is in the Tech business is disgusted by Darl McBride and his dishonest shenanigans. Connecting Mormonism with his actions is erroneous.

"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.

Re:A really nice response.

[StenD]

Just a shame that it was co-authored by that gun-toting fucktard ESR who makes the lot of us seem like a bunch of hillbillies from Utah.

As opposed to the sterling image you present with this comment?

New buisness model

[wilddur]

Dear SCO,

Linux fill have a new buisness model apart from selling support to GPLed Software. It will be:

1.- Be sued by SCO
2.- Suing back for damages and may be for using Linux/GNU or BSD software in System V
3.- Profit!!!

SCO should be developing new software if they want to survive in today's world. Instead they are focusing on lawers and nonsense... thats a bad path for a company.

In the worst case they may not be able to compensate or all de the FUD and loses that are causing.

Be prepared SCO workers... you may work for linux in the future!

What do you say?

[MuParadigm]

"Hey, he's got child porn on his workstation!"

Re:ESR and Perens and some slashbot jackass

[zitsky]

Please mod this as humorous! ;-)

It's an obvious troll, but it gave me a laugh. Maybe you trolls should put your own stuff through a grammar and spell checker if you want to pass yourself off as a serious poster???!!!

IP Contamination

[RobertB-DC]

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

See, there's another reason to support open-source. They're working to correct IP contamination! Next time I see an IP address like 66.35.506.150, I'll know where to turn (especially if this helpful page goes away).

Re:SCO is not the problem. Mormonism is?

[RealisticWeb.com]

I don't the the poster was making any connection to the LDS church, that just happened to be in the quote that he put in. I have to agree with you though, religion has nothing to do with this whole thing and I find it unfortuate that the Mormon church (or any church for that matter) could get associated with this kind of nonscence. Let's keep religion out of it. Yes, the company is in Utah, a lot of them are probably Mormon, but if they were in Mexico, they would probably all be catholic. So what? It doen't have anything to do with the phyco Mc'bribe' or the actions of SCO.

What we really need is an.....

[3seas]

Annual B.S. Award... like the vaporware award.

If anyone wants to start it up, I nominate Bush for first place, Blair for second place and MS for third (credit goes for teaching Bush how to control the media and claim everyone supports him, by telling everyone that.....)

Of course I nominate SCO for fourth place. For certainly trhey make the top 5 list.

You mean Linux/Gnu/HURD

[Scott Lockwood]

Since almost all of HURD's IDE code comes from Linux, you should now refer to it by it's propere name: Linux/Gnu/HURD.

Re:Go Big Blue!

[Petrol]

OK, now to split hairs.
I popped open my dictionary and the rather lengthy definition of 'steal' includes "to take or appropriate without right or leave and with intent to keep or make use of wrongfully"

while 'theft' (also described as 'the act of stealing') revolves more around tangible personal property, i.e. "the felonius taking and removing of personal property with intent to deprive the rightful owner of it b: an unlawful taking (as by embezzlement or burglary) of property"

my source: Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary copyright 1973

So, by my reading, IP infringment is more an act of stealing than of theft.

Re:SCO is not the problem. Canopy is.

[mormop]

Nice one,

Cheers for the link, Now I have a list of companies whose products I shall be telling every one I do work for NOT to buy.

Consultancy opportunity

[Mostly a lurker]

Dear Mr McBride,

I have a proposal to make to you that I believe could be in our mutual interests. I have been following with interest your license dispute with IBM, together with your attempt to keep us all informed through regular press releases and interviews. Unfortunately, for all your efforts, the result has been unsatisfactory as the information you have presented has consistently contained rather severe inaccuracies. I can assure you that I (like most in the open source movement) am very symathetic to your problem. I understand that SCO originally did not have a copy of much of the source code it owns (that you believe has been copied wholesale into Linux). As such, it is understandable that you would know little about it.

I believe SCO has now managed to acquire a copy of the Unix V source code. This is a good first step, but not enough. I believe you now need access to someone who can evaluate where this code came from and which portions, if any, may be regarded as SCO intellectual propery. I would like to offer my services to assist your organisation in this matter. As someone who can read C code and knows how to use the google search engine I am eminently qualified for this task.

I am sure you will wish to take advantage of this offer without delay. It must be a matter of great concern to you that, for all your efforts, you have thus far been unable to accurately present the situation to your shareholders, customers and the general public.

Yours etc.

Right...

[siskbc]

This is not true. If you subscribe to a service, and submit a press release, the wire services will pick it up. When I had a small company, we issued press releases. We paid our couple hundred bucks, our press release got out.

Tree in the forest with no one around, my friend. No one reads the AP wire. No paper will pick it up. No one will read your story.

Re:Right...

[mflaster]

Tree in the forest with no one around, my friend. No one reads the AP wire. No paper will pick it up. No one will read your story.

Everyone is talking about "papers" and "print it". Who cares about the written word? Not all (any?) of SCO's releases are in the paper. I just want Yahoo to associate it with SCOX in its news listing.

I really don't think there's a high hurdle for that to happen...

Been here enough...

[Thinkit3]

Basically, "The Man" has been given unlimited mod powers to further the corporate conservative agenda.

ESR doing his own source comparison to SCO UNIX...

[braddock]

I haven't seen this anywhere yet, but yesterday Raymond apparently announced that he had written a "Comparator" program to compare source trees and that now he is 'grinning a grin that should frighten the thieves and liars at SCO out of a week's sleep...'

Remember, ESR has previously stated that he has a copy of the SCO Unix source tree. He could theoretically now do the full analysis.

Here is the Linux Today article about Raymond's Comparator:

-braddock

Re:SCO is not the problem. Canopy is.

[KillerBees]

That is a troll-ish comment. I am Mormon and I don't believe myself to be "crazy". It appears the only one with a serious issue is you and your problem with Mormons. I live 4 miles from SCO headquarters, and they disgust me by their actions. Everyother Mormon I have met that is informed on the situation is disgusted also. In fact I know of Mormons who worked at Caldera who disapprove of SCOs actions. I can't believe someone would still make such a stupid comment like this...this is the 21st century, right?

A way to deal with SCO

[grek]

Here's an idea for those with some spare cash and the courage of your convictions. Buy a SCO share! You are now a shareholder and have rights as such to ask questions of your board at the next shareholders meeting. In fact why not get together with your friends and others and all buy one share and take turns to ask Darl and the rest of the board difficult questions. Obviously this is cheapest and easiest for people who live near SCO headquarters.

These are some of the tactics that comedian and activist Mark Thomas used, along with others, in the (eventually) sucessful fight to stop the Ilisu Dam project in Turkey - and they were fighting a lot more than little old SCO (see http://www.ilisu.org.uk/ to see the hit list)

Re:A way to deal with SCO

[RevSmiley]

Please again you can't "buy SCO." There isn't an amount of shares on the open market that could lead you to "control" SCO. The Canopy group owns 51+% of all outstanding SCO Stock. Controling SCO is imposible.

Also Why would you want give money to McSlime and his cohort to reward their piracy?

Re:Go Big Blue!

[tomhudson]

but you didn't take it, as they still have it. You copied it. Look up the definition of "take"

Libel v. Slander

[MuParadigm]

For dictation, it would libel. Primarily because the dictated work appears under the dictators under the name of the dictator and not the dictated.

For interview, it would be slander, because the interview is simply a report of the spoken record.

I'm not sure how it would be handled for an e-mail interview, though.

Torvalds to McBride: Please grow up.

[Anonymous Coward]

The following has been cut and pasted from the InfoWorld article "Torvalds to SCO: Negotiate What?"

--- cut here ---

Open letter to Darl McBride -- please grow up.

Dear Darl,

Thank you so much for your letter.

We are happy that you agree that customers need to know that Open Source is legal and stable, and we heartily agree with that sentence of your letter. The others don't seem to make as much sense, but we find the dialogue refreshing.

However, we have to sadly decline taking business model advice from a company that seems to have squandered all its money (that it made off a Linux IPO, I might add, since there's a nice bit of irony there), and now seems to play the US legal system as a lottery. We in the Open Source group continue to believe in technology as a way of driving customer interest and demand.

Also, we find your references to a negotiating table somewhat confusing, since there doesn't seem to be anything to negotiate about. SCO has yet to show any infringing IP in the Open Source domain, but we wait with bated breath for when you will actually care to inform us about what you are blathering about.

All of our source code is out in the open, and we welcome you point to any particular piece you might disagree with.

Until then, please accept our gratitude for your submission,

Yours truly,

Linus Torvalds

Re:Torvalds to McBride: Please grow up.

[TWX]

Well, if that is indeed what Linus wrote, I'll have to buy the man a beer if I'm ever in SF again. He's treating McBride as he should, as a petchulant child. Congrats...

Libel v. Slander

[MuParadigm]

Correction: For dictation, it would libel. Primarily because the dictated work appears under the name of the dictator and not the dictated.

This just in ... Linus' reply

[miniver]

There's an article over on Infoworld that includes an Open Letter from Linus Torvalds on the situation. I won't quote the whole article, but here's the letter:

Open letter to Darl McBride -- please grow up.

Dear Darl,

Thank you so much for your letter.

We are happy that you agree that customers need to know that Open Source is legal and stable, and we heartily agree with that sentence of your letter. The others don't seem to make as much sense, but we find the dialogue refreshing.

However, we have to sadly decline taking business model advice from a company that seems to have squandered all its money (that it made off a Linux IPO, I might add, since there's a nice bit of irony there), and now seems to play the US legal system as a lottery. We in the Open Source group continue to believe in technology as a way of driving customer interest and demand.

Also, we find your references to a negotiating table somewhat confusing, since there doesn't seem to be anything to negotiate about. SCO has yet to show any infringing IP in the Open Source domain, but we wait with bated breath for when you will actually care to inform us about what you are blathering about.

All of our source code is out in the open, and we welcome you point to any particular piece you might disagree with.

Until then, please accept our gratitude for your submission,

Yours truly,

Linus Torvalds

Dear Mr. Jameson:

[burgburgburg]

Dear Mr. Jameson,

Please keep up your insightful attacks against that criminal Spider-Man. Yours is the only paper that properly recognizes the menace this individual represents to our fair NYC. We applaud your bold stance.

All the best,
Green Goblin, Esq.

P.S. Muahahahahahahaha

Re:SCO is not the problem. Canopy is.

[Mr.Ned]

Troll Tech as in QT?

Just bleet.

[Thinkit3]

You'll inform the rest of us as much as you do now.

"error in the Linux developer process"?

[rsilvergun]

It's true Bruce Perens said there was an error in the developement process, which presumably means code was added to the kernel improperly. I'm under the impression the error was the removal of a copyright notice from otherwise completely legal code. Can someone confirm this for me and point me to a source for confirmation? Alternatively, what exactly was the error in question?

Re:"error in the Linux developer process"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Perens didn't say there was an error in the development process, AFAIK, he said there was an error in a "Linux developer's process (at SGI)" - specifically a developer at SGI. The quote: "In this case, there was an error in the Linux developer's process (at SGI), and we lucked out that it wasn't worse. It turns out that we have a legal right to use the code in question, but it doesn't belong in Linux and has been removed. These slides have several C syntax errors and would never compile. So, they don't quite represent any source code in Linux. But we've found the code they refer to. It is included in code copyrighed by AT&T and released as Open Source under the BSD license by Caldera, the company that now calls itself SCO. The Linux developers have a legal right to make use of the code under that license. No violation of SCO's copyright or trade secrets is taking place." If such inaccurate quoting is any indication of McBride's ethics and honesty (like we need more of that)... The original article from Bruce is at http://perens.com/SCO/SCOSlideShow.html

Re:"error in the Linux developer process"?

[spitzak]

The error was the deletion of the BSD copyright.

Apparently the code was removed from Linux for other reasons so there is no need to reinsert the copyright.

Since the copyright was also deleted from SCO's version, they certainly cannot claim any victory there!

I got a good laugh...

[Stephen Samuel]

In feedback to the LinuxWorld article, one reader wrote: Just because SCO has been unable, or more realistically unwilling to develop this component of their business to meet the rapidly growing demand, does not mean that the opportunity does not exist and that it is not being capatalized upon now, as we speak.

That comment made me laugh -- not because I disagree with it, but because it made me realize domething:

Mr. McBride wants the OS community to come up with a business model for using open source that he can wrap his greedy little mind around, because he wants to usurp that idea too.

It's not like we're expecting him to come up with an inventive idea, are we?

SCO's Address

[Slashdolt]

The SCO Group
355 South 520 West
Suite 100
Lindon, Utah 84042 USA
Phone: 801-765-4999
Fax: 801-852-9088

Also, SCO's Linux licenses start at $699 during the promotional period.

I'm not sure how much easier I can make this.

Again, take an active role.

--
Slash

I object!

[Thinkit3]

Plantiff's lawyer has tenuous grip on reality.

Re:Go Big Blue!

[Wylfing]

Generally accurate.

No. Not accurate. From the grandparent:

So, I think steal applies [to alleged copied code in Linux], at least according to dictionary.com, because to steal is to take property, and property can be somethign intangible like a copyright.

Absolute hogwash. If you were to abscond with the copyright itself, then perhaps you would have stolen something, because only one entity can claim to have the copyright on a work. However, making a copy does not constitute theft. Please, please research common law on property. Property theft is a crime because it deprives the rightful owner of his possessions. "Offenses" such as copyright infringement are not crimes.

Bank thing has been done before.

[Thinkit3]

Money is, by definition, a scarce resource. Otherwise it would be useless. Information is not a scarce resource.

Corrupted Capitalism

[Stephen Samuel]

Adam Smith's seminal treatise on capitalism (based on multiple small businesses in an open market) has often been misquoted as a justification for global multinationalism. There is another aspect to his work that I'd like to adress here.

One of his presumptions is that, 'In advancing his own welfare, a businessman will also advance the welfare of his entire community'. To reverse that logic, I'd say that to powerfully advance his own welare as a 'good' capitalist, a businessman should necessarily benefit his entire community.

In eiter case, Smith's treatise presumes that people play in a reasonably fair manner within the constraints of capitalism. He did not take into account the effects of what I would refer to as meta-game shenanigans like using legal technicalities to usurp the works of others (and thus provide a disincentive to advancing the welfare of the whole.).

McBride and his allies at SCO are an example of these metagame players -- attempting to use rules far outside the domain of the market to shift ownership of the resources being created without really creating any of his own. Although he hids behind a mask of 'last defender of the free enterprise system', he is in fact one of those most earnestly undermining that system from within.

"Patriotism is tha last refuse of the scoundrel". . - (reference anyone?)

Re:Corrupted Capitalism

[Stephen Samuel]

Oh man, getting moderated troll is sooo insulting. (sigh).

Re:Corrupted Capitalism

[RevSmiley]

Stephen apperently you are on someones shit list today. My apologies. I can't fathom what moderation is supposed to prove/help/solve. It seems random, illogical, childish and biased.

I think it's becuse you used the word capitalist. That upsets a resonably large group of /.er for some reason as far as I can tell. Likely it's because they can't reason. Who knows. I felt you were informative.

Fix

[headonfire]

My first release of my patch has been outdated. Here's the new version, fixing the "blank line" bug.

/* Intellectual Property Buster v2.0 (IPbuster.h) Include this in your kernel to prevent that nasty SCO licensing business. Since SCO refuses to release the code in question so that we may not replace it with clean code, I hereby symbolically delete all non-GPL SCO Corporation code from this kernel. Deleted section begins below. */
/* BEGIN */
DOWNWITHWHITESPACE!
/* END */
/* IP Buster v2.0 (C)2003 Headonfire, all rights reserved. Not for redistribution. */ /* no wait, it's GPL still! */

Re:Go Big Blue!

[yerricde]

"Offenses" such as copyright infringement are not crimes.

Bull. See 17 USC 506, paying close attention to the definition of "financial gain" in 17 USC 101.

I learned a long time ago.....

[bdsesq]

Never have a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent.

They are not smart enough to realize when they have lost.

Re:Go Big Blue!

[rking]

Property theft is a crime because it deprives the rightful owner of his possessions.

You're correct that theft does involve depriving the rightful owner of his possessions, but that isn't a necessary quality of crimes. There are plenty of crimes that do not involve depriving anyone of property.

"Offenses" such as copyright infringement are not crimes.

Copyright infringement certainly CAN be a crime, at least in some jurisdictions including the USA. It often isn't a crime though.

Letter from linus

[adam231]

Torvalds fires back according to InfoWorld, Http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/09/10/HNtorval dssco_1.html

Then why no intellectual property tax?

[yerricde]

properties such as copyrights and trademarks

If copyrights are considered property, then why don't copyright owners have to pay a property tax?

The lawyers are the problem

[mykepredko]

I've seen text in a number of software vendor's EULAs that are identical to SC's idemnity paragraph. Having this clause doesn't mean you don't believe that your product is free of other company's IP, it means that the company's lawyers put it in there and refuse to represent the company if it is modified in any way.

I've seen my company (Celestica) fight it and modify it to the point where the vendor agrees that all their code is undisputedly theirs, but I don't think any will guarantee that the tools used to compile, link and debug the code is free of undisputed code. Many companies will agree to this modification, but some won't. We end up thinking long and hard about the ones that won't and whether or not we should do business with them.

Maybe if more companies pushed back on these clauses they would become much less common.

myke

Re:funding the lawyers

[tomhudson]

Good point, except that the lawyers working for SCO are working on percentage (the lowest of the low, I guess, probably can't get any other work).

The one funding SCO is Microsoft, buying a license it didn't need (it had already licensed the source code from AT&T when they made Xenix, and anyone can do a POSIX-compliant implementation, even Linus :-)

I'm surprised nobody bothered to point out that Microsoft doesn't need a license to implement unix services.

Linus Responds to our fr^Hiend Darl

[mewyn]

In the now "Open Letter Frenzy" Linus responds to Darl.

My favorite:
However, we have to sadly decline taking business model advice from a company that seems to have squandered all its money (that it made off a Linux IPO, I might add, since there's a nice bit of irony there), and now seems to play the US legal system as a lottery.

Article at Infoworld

The most damaging lines in Linux kernel code...

[theendlessnow]

As SCO has said, the ability to run SCO binaries is certainly an issue.... this link proves the point, as much of Linux appears to contain code that looks like: http://www0.us.ioccc.org/2001/anonymous.c

Re:Glaring omission in response

[Frobnicator]

Perens completely ignored the issue of SGI contributing Sys V code into Linux. How does Perens reconcile this with his rhetoric, which basically states Linux is completely original?

It was not ignored. He said, and the whole kernel development group says, that if you show them something that they don't have the rights to, they will either prove that they have a legal right to the code or remove it.

A lot of System V code came from earlier and different projects, many of which are in the public domain or under free license.

frob

Rights to blank lines? Harken to 4'33 && J

[wherley]

blank lines in code are as
silence in music ...remember John Cage was paid for infringement on
his 4'33 track of silence. :)

Re:Go Big Blue!

[HTH NE1]

OK, now to split hairs.
I popped open my dictionary and the rather lengthy definition of 'steal' includes "to take or appropriate without right or leave and with intent to keep or make use of wrongfully"

May I split the hair further?

To appropriate is, "To take possession of or make use of exclusively for oneself, often without permission." So appropriation is still denying possession to another, still a word rooted in the physical world.

So IP infringement is still not stealing nor theft. It is only "infringement". Still illegal, but just not as buzzy of a word.

"IP that no one owns and is free"

[GQuon]

From the Kevin Bedell article:

This new business model is based on companies and individuals increasing productivity and reducing costs by collaborating on 'shared' IP that no one owns and is free.

Well, not quite. The IP is still owned by the contributor. It's just irrevocably licensed through the GNU Public License or another "free" license.
"Open Source" is not in the public domain, but for practical purposes it is not owned. You will only get in trouble if you publish your derivative work without abiding by the license terms.

Re:Rights to blank lines? Harken to 4'33 &&

[gl4ss]

trust of (late)john cage.

i don't think he himself would have been that idiotic/silly to sue because of a sort of a nod towards him(the guy was making a gesture of respect, albeit 'tongue in cheek', to him).

Did SCO inherit AT&T's copyright on blank line

[jc42]

Back in the 1980's, I was just one of many people who noticed that AT&T claimed to have a copyright on blank lines. You can see one of these claims at http://web.42.net/true.html. Google for /bin/true and you'll find more.

This is the good old "true" program, which on Sys/V was an empty shell script. It works; it does nothing, and then since there were no errors, it exist with a zero status. Some drone at AT&T obviosly wrote a script to run through all their scripts and add an AT&T copyright notice. This also added two blank lines (only one in some later versions), leading to the observation that AT&T really was claiming to own the rights to blank lines.

One fun thing is that their copyrighted version of /bin/true went through many versions, all of which contained only blank lines and a copyright notice.

Another fun thing that I did was to post the code for /bin/true on several newsgroups as responses to discussions, pointing out that I had posted a copyrighted AT&T program in its entirety, and challenging AT&T to prosecute me. For some mysterious reason, I never heard from them.

There was also an AT&T copyright notice in /bin/false, which contained only the command "exit 255", so if you do that in any script, you are also inviolation of AT&T/SCO's claimed copyright.

Anyway, it does seem that the SCO gang considers /bin/true to be part of the IP that they inherited from AT&T. This is presumably the basis of the majority of their claim that there are a million lines of stolen SCO code in linux. When you add in all the lines that contain only /*, */ and //, you can easily get to a million lines.

It could be fun if they actually made the mistake of pressing this claim in court.

Actually,

[Sevn]

You are underestimating the press love of a good mudslinging. The savefarscape.com people organized themselves pretty damn well and ended up getting repeated mention on CNN and newswires. Lots of national publications picked the story up. Seems to me it would be a lot easier to get time with a story like this.

Re:A really nice response.

[Anonymous Coward]

I am an insensitive clod, you hillbilly from Utah!

Torvald's open letter to Darl McBride

[G3ckoG33k]

I don't know if I have missed this here on Slashdot, but here it is (again?):

"Open letter to Darl McBride -- please grow up. Dear Darl, Thank you so much for your letter. We are happy that you agree that customers need to know that Open Source is legal and stable, and we heartily agree with that sentence of your letter. The others don't seem to make as much sense, but we find the dialogue refreshing. However, we have to sadly decline taking business model advice from a company that seems to have squandered all its money (that it made off a Linux IPO, I might add, since there's a nice bit of irony there), and now seems to play the US legal system as a lottery. We in the Open Source group continue to believe in technology as a way of driving customer interest and demand. Also, we find your references to a negotiating table somewhat confusing, since there doesn't seem to be anything to negotiate about. SCO has yet to show any infringing IP in the Open Source domain, but we wait with bated breath for when you will actually care to inform us about what you are blathering about. All of our source code is out in the open, and we welcome you point to any particular piece you might disagree with. Until then, please accept our gratitude for your submission, Yours truly, Linus Torvalds"



As seen in an InfoWorld article.

It is not yours... reminds me of a song

[ryan76]

This line:

It is not yours, has never been yours, and will never be yours.

reminds me of the Pearl Jam song Not For You... seems appropriate. Listen to it.. its a good angry song.

McDonalds has nothing to say about SCO

[shanen]

I think the only thing that will stop SCO now is bankruptcy. The only question is whether or not they lose the lawsuit first. Actually, considering Bush v. Gore, I suppose it is possible they could win it, but the more you learn about the history of the code in question, the less likely it seems. More likely someone else can sue SCO for prior IP violations.

Anyway, on the topic of fostering SCO's bankruptcy, don't forget that they do have a revenue stream besides stock speculation. True, more like a trickle in relative terms, but still worth dealing with if it will generate some more bad press. AFaIK, the big drip in that other revenue stream is McDonalds, and I still think they deserve a boycott. M$-style motto:

McDonalds: You deserve a boycott today!

By the way, I contacted McDonalds to ask them if they are still SCO's star customers, and they came back with the stone wall. Or maybe it was just a really ignorant marketroid?

Re:You have no idea what you are talking about.

[benzapp]

Actually, Joseph Goebbels never lied, at least about things which are not based on opinion. As far as the events of WWII, he was actually entirely honest.

First of all, lets remember the term "Nazi" was a British propaganda tool. The German People nor the members of the National Socialist Party referred to themselves as such. Just by using it, you acknowledge propaganda has value.

The big lie was first discussed by Hitler in Mein Kampf in reference to one of the reasons Germany lost WWI. Great Britain was the first country to use propaganda, and they became masters of it during WWI. Many would argue it became necessary after the disaster of the Boer War where hundreds of thousands of German settlers in Zimbabwe and South Africa were killed in concentration camps. Some serious anti-british sentiment was being spread around due to this event, and Propaganda was born in Britain.

During WWI, the trend continued. The Germans didn't use ANY propaganda. At most, newspapers would have cartoons of British soldiers acting like buffoons. The British published MANY releases on how evil and barbaric the Germans were. Hitler was simply pointing out that it makes sense for a government to realize active persuasion is NECEASSRY and if your enemy uses it, you will have a problem. Goebbels usually discussed Britain's more ridiculous lies. Today, we all thing of Nazis rounding up Jews and what not. That had NOTHING to do with the war however, and the British never made a case for the war on those grounds. Their argument was that Germany must be stopped because they were trying to take over the world. It doesn't matter Germany lacked the means to do so, and publically announced this to the world. It doesn't matter they had no interest in taking over the world. What does matter however is Great Britain controlled 2/3 of the world in 1939. It was extreme hypocricy to suggest the British had a any more right to the world as Germany.

On a side note, after the fall of France in 1940, France was allowed to keep her colonies, and the soldiers abroad were left to defend them. They never invaded her colonies. It probably would have been a great help to have done so, at least in Algeria but it didn't happen.

Here is a speech by Goebbels on this very topic.

That same site has many speeches by him as well. Try and dig up a lie there if you like.

Lets not forget the worst of the British lies. Only about 60,000 British died in during German bombing raids, the vast majority of which were directed towards military targets. Terror bombing was used, with the V-2 and such, but more to induce capitulation and not slaughter civilians. The British on the other hand destroyed whole cities, hundreds of thousands would die in a matter of days. Compare that treatment to the French... Their civilian casualties were in the hundreds. In the end, over 1.5 million German civilians would die. So much for the Geneva Convention.

Germany had the means to obliterate London from the face of the earth in 1940, but did not. What if the entire population had been gassed to death? Is there any chance Britain would have continued on? No. But as Goebbels and Hitler both said, their goal was to SAVE europe from nihilistic materialism which internationalism was foisting upon the world. They obviously failed in that regard, but that had no intention of destroying Europe.

Whatever else Goebbels and Hitler did, they did not lie to the world about their goals and aspirations. That is a British trait.

Shouldn't be, no.

[GQuon]

So what? It doen't have anything to do with the phyco Mc'bribe' or the actions of SCO.
Either "the Economist" or SCO seem to think it is.

More on this.

Re:Shouldn't be, no.

[TWX]

If that's the article that I read, it seemed to connect McBride as a wacko religious zealot than anything else. Catholics have zealots, Jews have zealots, Muslims, Hindi, Buddists, etc, all have zealots. Well, maybe not hardcore Buddists, but anyway, I don't think that his religion is telling him to behave the way he does, I think that he is doing as he does, and he also happens to do what he does religiously.

I just think that religion is silly.

Re:Shouldn't be, no.

[RealisticWeb.com]

I didn't say that he wasn't Mormon, I said that his religion has nothing to do with his actions. IE It's not his church that is causing all this. He is the waco here.

a little silly...

[Dave_bsr]

So...ESR is bad in general, because he likes guns, and has a collection. He hasn't really gunned anyone down yet. Nope. Or even really shot at anyone. Or, say, facilitated weapons to other people so THEY could hurt other people. So, really, all the evil he's done is...not much...um...at all? So he likes guns. Guns can kill people, or destroy. But they also can defend. You didn't see anyone fighting Hitler with bows and arrows, did you? so...anyways, guns are not all bad. And having guns doesn't make you bad.

Ok, so if guns don't necessarily make you bad, then i'd say ESR's contributions to Linux are tremendous, and thus he's a pretty cool guy in my book. And the fact that his beliefs aren't those of everyone else in OSS makes me a bit more comfortable hanging out with the slashbots - we aren't all liberal, or all conservative, or all anything else. I think that's cool.

And comparing owning guns and advocating gun owner's rights to raping, ravaging, and defiling children sexually is just idiotic. That's lunacy dude.

Re:a little silly...

[lysium]

Precisely. If I say "Thomas Jefferson had slaves!" that does not mean that all of his contributions to society, politics, and history are instantly invalidated. It's all about what you do, not who you are or what you like to eat for breakfast.

======

Darl

[siskbc]

But does he do Bar Mitzvah's and mall openinings?

He will once SCO's stock dips below his option threshold.

Only the copyright itself is property

[riptalon]

Even defined as to "take property without permission" and with the loose definition it still doesn't work because it is the copyright or patent etc. that is the property, not the work or idea that it covers. Someone owns the copyright to the text of a book, they don't own the text itself. You can probably think of some way to steal a copyright (most likely involving fraud I guess) but you can't steal a copyrighted work (other than a physical representation). You can copy a work without permission and so infringe on the copyright but this is entirely different. Copyright infringement was only a civil matter until recently after all. If it was stealing then it would be covered under existing laws against theft but it took all the recent ammendments to the copyright legislation to make it a crime.

Anyway before you start quoting dictionary definitions you have to realize that dictionaries are descriptive not proscriptive. They just describe the current general usage of words rather than proscribing their definative meaning. Since most people are idiots, even if there wasn't deliberate attempts to reshape the meanings of words, a description of how a word is generally used is likely to be contaminated by the idiocy of the general public. When you add in the fact that the media, who are the enemy here, are in a perfect position to manipulate the general usage of words to be whatever they want, and you see that Orwell's Newspeak is far from fiction.

Re:Only the copyright itself is property

[bladernr]

RIAA doubleplus ungood. Ingsoc unalive RIAA. RIAA speak blackwhite. (from my memory of 1984)

McBride's sources

[Stormie]

Hmmmm! At this rate they'll fade away in a couple of weeks or so.

McBride: That's like if someone comes into your house while you're sleeping, takes your jewels, and as you start chasing them down...

They are claiming the whitespace. I'd say a few SCO execs are likely to get a call from our friends at the SEC, and they ain't gonna be talking about whether or not Tennessee's going to a bowl game this year. I can't decide which is funnier - the point about IBM orchestrating all the outrage, or the point that SCO is somehow more "relevant" to the tech community because they've filed a bunch of press releases! I think he is just going to replace the 'offending' code with a big ASCII middle finger.

This Comment was generated with the Comment-O-Matic for SCO Stories.

SCO is still benefiting from open source

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it possible for many of these open source projects to modify their licenses such that they specifically exclude SCO distributing them?

Whether using the Apache Web server, Linux, gcc, make, Apache Tomcat, PHP, or one of the many, many other open source packages, virtually every company today is heavily dependent upon open source."

Re:SCO is still benefiting from open source

[foonf]

Is it possible for many of these open source projects to modify their licenses such that they specifically exclude SCO distributing them?

Yes, it is possible, but:

* It would make the license GPL-incompatible, at the very least

* For a large project, every single developer would have to consent to the relicensing of their contribution.

* It could not apply retroactively to older versions.

More feasible, IMHO, is dropping support for SCO's platforms. They don't appear to really have enough developers to reverse the changes if they are deep enough. But even this isn't a perfect idea, since after all it punishes users of SCO, rather than SCO themselves, and could hurt the public perception of the "open source community".

Re:SCO is still benefiting from open source

[spitzak]

You can easily do this (or any other rules you want) to code you write. However this is in violation of the GPL, so you could not apply such rules to any GPL parts of Linux without getting the permission of every single author of all the parts you use in your Linux distribution. This is of course impossible.

SCO claims: the new cold fusion?

[cfassnacht]

Trying to create a miracle source of value that others can't seem to reproduce? You may be an ambitious though misguided resident of Utah. Unfortunately, peer review will be catching up with you. Alternate career plans are strongly recommended.

Good job.

[Thinkit3]

Usually I don't even bother to reply to anons myself.

Re:Good job.

[Alsee]

This particular anon is a real schmuck. He actually went to my Slashdot post history page and replied trash to my last SEVEN consecutive posts. He posted this same exact post five times. He has replying to this, and apparently it got him extremely upset :D

I've got my very own stalker, it'ss the second time he's done this to me. Last time it was about TCPA too. He gets real upset when I discuss technical details and explain exactly what is wrong with TCPA.

-

Re:Good job.

[Alsee]

I ask you this then: Is justice Overrated?

"Justice" has nothing to do with the fact that copyright infringment is different than theft, and it certainly has nothing to do with TCPA and the fact that it denies people access to their own keys.

-

Re:Good job.

[Alsee]

a recent negative moderation some of your recent posts have received.

Looking over my my recent posts I see nothing but positive mods. Twelve of them as a matter of fact.

I then went back to my posts that you spammed insults at and found what you are talking about. A major victory for you, moding down posts that are nearly a week old. Too bad you didn't get mod points when they actually would have made a difference. Hell, even after modding me down I'm still Score 2 Insightful. Congratulations on getting mod points and abusing them.

What is your obsession anyway? Are you getting paid to astroturf for TCPA? The fact is that you haven't even claimed any of my statements are incorrect. All you have ever done is toss empty insults and tell me to shut up.

If you think I'm wrong I invite you make a specific claim that any specific statement of mine is in factual error.

I defy you to claim a specific factual error in any of the statements I made. If you try I'll eat you alive with evidence and refferences. You don't have a single argument, just insults.

#1: "I even had a breif E-mail exchange with the author" [The author of Why_TCPA and TCPA_rebuttal, the most widely cited pro-TCPA refference] His name is David Safford and I still have his reply.

#2: "TCPA design specification that the owner of the machine is forbidden to know his own encryption keys" I can give an official TCPA PDF link and page number refference.

#3: "design specification of "non-migrable data". The TCPA specificly states that it MUST NOT be possible to move this data from one system to another even with the active cooperation of the the owner of the machine and the owner of the data." Again, I can give an official TCPA PDF link and page number reffernce.

#4: >"Whoever does the "Take Ownership" command of the TPM controls the master key.
False. The TCPA design specification explicitly requires that the owner MUST NEVER be permitted access to the TPM master key." Again, I can cite official TCPA PDF and page number to back this up.

#5: "Aside from DRM and denying people control over their own computers, I defy you to name a single thing you have done that you couldn't have done just as well with an identical system where people were NOT denied access to their own keys." The orgininal poster never replied, unless of course YOU are the original poster. In either case, I defy you to answer that challenge.

It's rather peculiar how both this time and last time someone with no posting history showed up, made a series of posts claiming to be a Linux developer and claiming to be making beneficial use of TCPA in Linux, yet never says what. He then vanishes without responding to specific criticisms and specific questions. Instead you spew out worthless anon insults.

It smells like an astroturf campaign to manufacture a positive link between TCPA and Linux. You're either an astrotrufer or a really peculiar troll.

-

My stupid opinion

[md65536]

In SCO's letter they make it sound like it's an "Open Source Community" thing to use copyrighted code. If someone at SGI did this, why does SCO think that they wouldn't put copyright-protected code into closed, proprietary code? What makes them think that other closed-source corporations don't do this? (I suppose to answer my own question, those corporations would be more directly liable for such copyright violations, so they care more about preventing it, obfuscating it, or hiding it).

Open-source development cares a lot about copyright stuff. The GNU license list notes which licenses are compatible with the GPL. It's not like they think that any code can be and becomes GPL licensed, regardless of where it came from, regardless of what previous licenses may have applied.

So, copyright violation occurs in other software development models. What's weird is that SCO is going after individual users. When someone sues MS over something stolen, they sue the company, they don't tell users of MS products that they have to pay additional licensing fees.

You say, "I thought of that first!"

[peachpuff]

And if it's a design, song, etc., you say "I designed (or wrote) that! He just copied it."

Philosophy of ownership aside, I'm surprised you haven't heard those phrases before.

Linux for business

[Safiire Arrowny]

Since when were all the Kernel developers making Linux for businesses? In the open letter, Daryl was all about saying that we're damaging our hopes and dreams for Linux in businesses.

I don't know about you, but I could give a rats ass about weather or not the business world finds Linux acceptable or not. I highly doubt the developers and all the other OSS folks or me will stop developing and working on Linux regardless of what anyone says or thinks.

It's nice to have drivers from businesses that make hardware and all that, but we didn't have them before and we surely shouldn't become reliant on them.

Therefore all the crap that Daryl is trying to use to scare us with, shouldn't work.

Personally, I think that this stupid obsession with getting everyone and their mom to use Linux as their desktop OS at home and in business is going to hurt Linux more than anything because of the comprimises that will need to be implemented to get them aboard.

Re:Linux for business

[pair-a-noyd]

Well, you are pretty much on the money, I have to agree with you mostly. But.

I'm on a personal Jihad against M$ and it's my duty to do everything I can to show everyone I come in contact with what a $hitty O$ M$ is..

I give Linux to the people that I like and that I care about. I give Winbloz to the people I either don't like or the people that I want to make money off of.

Sounds mean?? No, that's just business. I don't make money on Linux, it's just too solid and stable to do that. But Winbloz, well, it's the turd that won't flush. No matter what you do and how hard you work at it, you can't keep a M$ install clean and or running properly.
M$ is the TOTAL, 24/7 maintenance O$..

So, it makes no good sense to me to really rid the world of M$, that would be killing the goose that laid the golden egg...

M$=guaranteed income for techs...

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Go Big Blue!

[codefungus]

"If I make an exact replica of your car, I don't think you would claim I'd taken your car."

No but GM sure as hell would! :)

Re:SCO is not the problem. Mormonism is?

[Maserati]

Excellent. How about a little peer pressure from his own religious community ?

No worries over interview "stolen lines"

[bobKali]

At least McBride doesn't have to worry about interview infringement over "stealing lines" from the Bruce Perens interview. Taking them that far out of context oughta qualify them as being his own and not Perens's thoughts.

All well and good, but...

[Trogre]

...it doesn't seem to have affected SCO's stock price.

SCO claims Bible verse stolen from V code

[Anonymous Coward]

McBride is saying that 1 million words has been stolen from System V code into the Bible. McBride is also closely watching Tora's words too.

Very soon MCBridge will send a 10 billion law suits to churches all around the world and even call on Jesus for justice.

McBride is offering all churches $1000 license fee to legalize their Bible.

THAT IS AN EXCELLENT LETTER

[tjstork]

That is by far Raymond's best work as a writer. It's way better than the Cathedral and the Bazaar.

Re:You have no idea what you are talking about.

[dipipanone]

What does matter however is Great Britain controlled 2/3 of the world in 1939. It was extreme hypocricy to suggest the British had a any more right to the world as Germany.

You are David Irving and I claim my five pounds!

As always, Linus rocks!

[debest]

...but we wait with bated breath for when you will actually care to inform us about what you are blathering about.

Once again, a quip from Linus that is wickedly funny. The perfect combination of politeness and dry sarcasm that never fails to make me chuckle.

I really ought to read his autobiography. I bet I'd find it hysterical, especially if he was a bit pissed off while writing it.

Some positive things about SCO...

[TWX]

They're small, so they'll not last long after this debacle ends...

Their company name is short, so it's easy to type repeatedly in flames against them...

They're geographically somewhat isolated compared to the locations of most tech companies, so one doesn'te have to worry about being charged with Battery while out having a drink with friends, only to have a SCO employee walk in...

"SCOX" just looks dirty. I'm still not entirely sure why yet...

Re:Go Big Blue!

[kingramon0]

As I understand it, the founders envisioned copyright as sort of a contract between the public and someone who has an idea.

If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me . . . .

Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property. Society may give an exclusive right to the profits arising from them, as an encouragement to men to pursue ideas which may produce utility, but this may or may not be done, according to the will and convenience of the society, without claim or complaint from anybody.

-Thomas Jefferson

As Jefferson said, once you release an idea it no longer belongs to you but to the public. Copyright is the public agreeing to alow the author a monopoly on his idea for a limited time in order to encourage him to release more ideas to the benefit of the public.

People nowadays have lost sight of this and we have terms like "Intellectual Property" and the idea that an author owns his work, when in reality he does not.
That is not to say that the public should not hold up their end of the bargain, but seeing as how companies have been increasing copyright terms and depriving the public of what belongs to them for longer periods of time you, it's hard to sympathize with them.

The problem with talking about IP

[hayden]

Is in what you wrote. Copyrights, patents, trade marks and trade secrets are what lawyers talk about. IP is a nebulous term invented by business people who don't understand the distinction.

In your post you have confused copyright (which protects a particular embodiment of a work) with patents (which protects a method of performing something).

There was also an AT&T copyright notice in /bin/false, which contained only the command "exit 255", so if you do that in any script, you are also inviolation of AT&T/SCO's claimed copyright.

AT&T are quite right to claim copyright over that one line but that doesn't stop you from using the same line in another work provided you don't actually copy that one line. It's up to the copyright holder to prove the copyright infringement, not up to you to show it isn't infringing.

If AT&T had gotten a patent on "Method for returning from a program which indicates an error", then you couldn't use that method (or any other different method that did what was in the patents claims) with out risking being taken to court.

Re:The problem with talking about IP

[jc42]

AT&T are quite right to claim copyright over that one line ...

Um, I think you left out the smiley. ;-)

I mean, we're talking about a coyright claim on a blank line here.

A lot of people have wished we could find a company that is sufficiently stupid to attempt to defend such a claim in court. It could make for not just some fun reporting, but also a bit of cash in the settlement.

The main use of an example line the copyright claim in AT&T's /bin/true is to illustrate the concept of a fraudulent copyright claim. Not all copyright claims are legal, and anyone who thinks you must automagically obey any copyright claim is simply a sucker for corporate fraud. It's hard to find a better example than AT&T's attempt to copyright blank lines.

But at least they had the brains to ignore taunts intended to get them to file suit. Too bad they couldn't have taken Fox's path in their recent attempt to enforce their trademark on the phrase "fair and balanced". This lost Fox not just a lot of face, but also a bit of money (and the prospect of even larger losses when they repeat such an offense).

In this case, what Fox did was put Al Franken on the best-seller lists. We've already seen some clues that SCO's attack is doing the same thing to linux. But SCO is sorta small stuff in the commercial world, and most managers still haven't heard of them. What we need now is for Fox to register a phrase like "Open News Source" as its trademark, and then sue the linux gang for infringement. Imagine how that would help our left-wing, commie campaign to conquer the world ...

Re:SCO is not the problem. Canopy is.

[Qeantk]

... not in Utah. ;) (I live here too, btw).

Re:Godwin's Law! - no

[salesgeek]

I find the comparison of propaganda techniques used by SCO and the Nazi Minister of Propaganda not subject to Godwin's law, and actually, rather telling about the character of the players at SCO.
I think that the Nazis would be offended by the comparison.

AAA!

[Paul d'Aoust]

you insensitive clod! I'm so new to this Intarweb thing... I had no idea what tubgirl.com was...

gonna wash my eyes out now.

Re:AAA!

[WebHikerOriginal]

The best part is that they deemed it neccesary to pixelise out the poor girls clam in case it offends anyone...

Don't DDoS - manipulate stock instead

[puzzled]

You /.ers are fairly clueless - two of you who haven't bathed in a month(each) can bring SCO's network to its knees, but the other 79,998 regular users can't each take five minutes to join http://ragingbull.com and pound this stuff into the heads of every dummy who is buying this stock because of its 'momentum'.

Get on that stock board, post a message with the subject "SCOX ==> $0, read this", and link it to the latest slashdot article on the topic.

If it is a genuine pump and dump there are a handful of paid cheerleaders out there who are trying to bury any sensible discussion so the 'marks' don't see it by filling that board with SCOX rah rah rah nonsense. Amp the signal to noise ratio to the point where the cluelesss day traders know this thing is a pig in a poke and you'll do way more damage than ranting on slashdot about the subject.

Re:Don't DDoS - manipulate stock instead

[MegaFur]

Are you affiliated with ragingbull.com ?

Re:Don't DDoS - manipulate stock instead

[puzzled]

NO, I'm not affiliated with raging bull, drooling goat, twitching british bovine, or any other web based stock manipulation ^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h tracking site. I've got some stock certificates which could be used, if properly softened, for wiping my ass.

Re:+2, tops

[E_elven]

While I think it's great they wrote the reply, the content and especially the tone were utterly wrong for a serious rebuttal in any more respectable publication, unlike, for example many posts here. A shame.

--
Dvorak is hard.

ha ha!

[Paul d'Aoust]

I clicked on it too, fully expecting to see goatse as well... thought, "hmmmm, maybe I should just press the stop button..." coulda easily been tubgirl, which I was just introduced to today, and had to subsequently pour ethanol in my eyes to clean them out.

hmmmmmmmm... I dunno.

[Paul d'Aoust]

I think they chose the word 'compromise' in this context because of SCO's allegation that a compromise must be made, as opposed to a hidden knowledge that Linux is in danger. I think that in another part of the letter, the authors question McBride about whether there is any compromise to be made at all.

Re:hmmmmmmmm... I dunno.

[110010001000]

How does this possibly get marked as a troll? It is a valid observation, however speculative. Is this not a place for the free exchange of ideas?

Re:hmmmmmmmm... I dunno.

[michib01]

Probaly someone got angry for some reasons at his/her working site and desired to take it out on your post.

I don't believe that should rated as "Troll" too...

IBM Buying people out (they don't)

[Elfich47]

Big Blue has a very simple litigation history: It does not buy out anyone to who tries to sue it. Big Blue will instead counter sue you for patent infrigment. They have 40,000 patents (give or take), and I'm sure you're violating one or two of them right now.

IBM will thrash it out in court, they have the time and the money. They have enough money that they fought the US AG to a standstill for 25 years over antistrust litigation.

When IBM chose 4 patents to sue SCO over, those 4 patents cover every piece of SCO's product line.

This means if IBM gets an injunction in place because of patent infringment SCO can no longer sell ANY product at all.

IBM standard procedure: Take you to court and win. or....

Take you to court and bleed you dry through lawyers fees until you capitulate because you cannot continue the litigation.

Choice is: which will happen to SCO first?

Re:Go Big Blue!

[Jeremy Erwin]

The copyright holder is legally entitled to a monopoly on reproductions of his copyrighted work. If someone else infringes, then it is no longer a monopoly.

So, when you copy that floppy, you are stealing away someone's monopoly. Of course, ever since the Progressive era, monopolies have not been perceived as entirely legitimate.

Re:+2, tops

[alext]

Yes, this needed a lot more work, a task to which well informed people here or on a site like Groklaw would have been more than happy to contribute.

A "community review" might have also boosted its claim to reflect OSS opinion, of course.

IMHO, the main problems are the emotive and vague language, plus the decision to respond to the DDos accusations first, which serves only to highlight SCO's partly legitimate complaint at the expense of the main issue.

However, it does get eventually around to stating a clear and reasonable demand so I guess followups won't be needed any time soon.

(Particularly annoying are the incorrect idioms:

reach a compromise (not "erect")
proposed vast conspiracy theories (not "uttered")
charges IBM and others (not "taxes", well, not commonly...)
and wildernesses don't "howl"
Instead of the horrible
"a form of sham which we believe you press on us solely as posturing"
something like
"misleading practices which are endemic in the industry, now ludicrously presented as a problem unique to Open Source"....)

OK, you get the point, I'm sure...

Re:Firearm enthusiast not equivalent to criminal..

[pair-a-noyd]

Nine out of ten of the voices in my head
told me to stay home today and clean my guns.

Hehehehehe

[SatanicPuppy]

Welcome to the wonderful world of /.

You'll never randomly click a link again.

Re:SCO is not the problem. Mormonism is?

[antiMStroll]

... religion has nothing to do with this whole thing...

On the other hand, it could get interesting if the Latter Day Saints thought SCO's unchristian acts reflected badly on their community. Yarro is after all Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Angel Partners. Not that I'm suggesting anything. :)

Lineo?!

[Pseudonym]

Forget Troll Tech, he's a director of Lineo!

Now who do you think bought the SCO licences?

shell script

[Anonymous Coward]

Why are the shell scripts posted on Slashdot always written in the worst possible way?

$ find linux-2.4.22/ -type f -print | xargs cat | grep -c '^$'
659688

What is that on the SCO globe logo?

[Torodung]

To me, it looks like part of a Mickey Mouse logo from Disney.

How appropriate.

SCO and alikes cannot do anything to Open Source

[Vineet.Mehta]

People Envy with someones success. Open Source has came a long way in presenting its success technically. Companies like SCO have full right to get angry, they will try to do anything to prove themselves bad guys to others. they will get nothing out of it. this is there job, these people are always like that. Why dont just SCO get out of this shit by admitting there mistake. But they cant coz they dont have guts to face the reality. This is human Phsycology, when they r trapped they try to do such things, that is make more blunder. God Help SCO!!

Re:Did SCO inherit AT&T's copyright on blank l

[Bates]

Not quite as funny as AT&T's blank line, but still weird.. If you look at /bin/clear on a solaris system, you will find a single line of shell script and an exit command. This tiny script has two copyrights attached to it, one from AT&T and one from Microsoft of all places including the line:

#This Module contains Proprietary Information of Microsoft
#Corporation and should be treated as Confidential.

I'm not sure how microsoft is involved with creating the one line script, why it should be treated as confidential. I'm even more confused as to why two different companies find it necissary to hold a copyright on a single shell command (it just calls /usr/bin/tput with some options). If I run /usr/bin/tput outside of the script, am I violating their copyright? I am so confused.

Microsoft needed a diversion

[u2mr2os2]

Since Longhorn is going to take a long time, they don't want people going all Linux in the meantime, so they needed to do something. So they get SCO to make a fake claim that'll take a long time to sort out. In the meantime, people cool on adopting Linux, and before it's all over: a new verison of Windows. One of the benefits that will be touted is that is does not have unlicensed SCO unix code.

Re:Go Big Blue!

[Anonymous Coward (0)]

If I make an exact replica of your car, I don't think you would claim I'd taken your car.

I would if I had designed the car myself. I would go the extra mile and say you had stolen it, in fact. This is why the analogy works.

Guilliano

[SlashDread]

should step in with some RICO laws /Dread
greetz NYC

Open Letter

[MuParadigm]

For anyone who is interested, my own Open Response, previously posted here, has been *extensively* revised.

You can view it on my journal page here.

Big. Fucking. Mistake.

[Rogerborg]

ESR, Bruce, You Have Been Trolled. If there's nothing to deny, why are you denying it? Thus goes the thinking in the empty heads of the pointy haired idiots that buy SCOX every time they see the name mentioned in any context.

This letter, while factually correct, is over long, defensive and even a little whiny. It needs cut down to the last two paragraphs, minus the "Accordingly". There is nothing to negotiate, nothing to discuss, and - until and if SCO show us the code - nothing to defend.

The clone war

[taff^2]

isn't cloning illegal too?

Thank you Eric and Bruce

[flintIII]

Dear Bruce and Eric,

Nice letter. Does the Job.
BTW why does my client's copy of SCO 5 contain a Microsoft Copyright?

Regards,

Flint

You could do it now !!!

[Chatterton]

You can use your methode to compare linux with BSD and show to all who much code is not under legal threat by SCO. Having all the code not under threat you can evaluate how much code is under threat.

In the end...

[Hadji Baba]

We will probably discover that this whole lawsuit was simply engineered to prop up the stock value so the major holders could make a quick buck before the enevitable death of SCO.

It's already over...

[klaxor]

If you wish to make a respectable case for contamination, show us the code. Disclose the overlaps. Specify file by file and line by line which code you believe to be infringing, and on what grounds. We will swiftly meet our responsibilities under law, either removing the allegedly infringing code or establishing that it entered Linux by routes which foreclose proprietary claims.

IANAL, but IIRC, in order for a copyright violation to be actionable (that is, to be able to be brought before the court), the copyright holder must show that they engaged in "due diligence" to prevent the infringement of copyright - that is, they did everything short of suing to ensure that their copyright was protected. Here you have the publishers of the "work in question" making an open commitment to ensure that copyrights are upheld and no infringing code is included into the Linux kernel. Which means that SCO will have to work with ESR and Perens to reveal the "offending lines", or risk losing any claim to copyright infringement, however valid.

This is the worst thing that could happen to SCO. If they comply, they lose any claim over the Linux kernel, as any offending lines will be rewritten. If they fail to respond, they forfeit the current Linux kernel - even if it contains their copyrighted code! Once given an offer of remediation, the copyright holder loses the right to bring a suit before the courts.

If anything, this has shown not the weakness of the Open Source model, but rather its strength. Unlike proprietary code, in which a user could unknowingly be in possession of another's IP, (and hence, liable for royalties to said third party...), the openness of the OS model ensures that any third-party copyright claims are effectively null and void.

ShellGolf!

[xarak]

For counting I would've done

find . -type f -exec sed -n '/^$/p' {} \; | wc -l

For what it's worth...

[MadMoses]

However, as I am not burdened with morals myself, I would like to take this opportunity to tell SCO to kiss my ass. They are claiming the whitespace.

This Comment was generated with the Comment-O-Matic for SCO Stories.

Very helpful info!

[jonathan_the_ninja]

I am glad to know the true story. I love Nethack.

diff *.o?

[4of12]

Others have mentioned the problem where source code comparison needs to account for variable renaming, the difference between
int i;
int j;

and

int i,j;

so why not compare chunks of compiled code (using the same compiler, options, etc.)?

Re: Moderators are amazing...

[anotherone]

and a third comment gets marked down to -1... you're right, that's just eerie.

Who's zoomin who??

[alfakat]

I have heard enough used car salesmen in my life to know the truth when I hear it and to know who used to work at a pot-lot selling 10 year-old Fords, Chevys and Toyotas. I am not interested in your "cream-puff", "Mr." McBride--you are the archtypical bs-er in plaid and white patent-leather shoes if I EVER saw one. Keep tellin the lies bigger, Darl--maybe your nose will tell us the weather on Mars, pretty soon....

Screwing SCO

[tqft]

"More feasible, IMHO, is dropping support for SCO's platforms"

How about the reverse? Identify what current SCO platforms do uniquely/better and design a replacemenent. This would work best if it was just software.BEGIN /*Linux/BSD/UNIX/OSX flameware*/ ...
END /*Linux/BSD/UNIX/OSX flameware*/

Does SCO sell hardware, if so what about their hardware is unique. Identify replacements and publish, ideally with code replacement links, so SCO users have a viable replacement.

Maybe not a big impact on SCO/Canopy, but if SCO/Canopy goes down in a big way, the participants in such a project could be looking at some juicy consulting contracts from users now bereft of support and finding people who already know their problem is just a short Googling away.

Positive SCO Defending Material

[MuParadigm]

Positive SCO Defending Material:

Umm...

Well...

Wait, I've got it!

Jill, in Accounts Receivable, is pretty cute.

Try this.....

[Bill Barth]

crappy bit of perl. Should be a couple of orders of magnitude or so faster. (I did my whole 2.6.0 tree in under a minute on my 1.4GHz Pentium M!)

find . -type f -print0 | xargs -0 perl -e '$cnt=0; while(<>) {$cnt+=/^$/;} print $cnt."\n"'|perl -e ' $sum=0; while(<>){ $sum+=$_;} print $sum."\n";'

It's not cleaner, but I like it.

Re:ESR and Perens and some slashbot jackass

[tetra103]

Obvious troll eh? It was an unbiased response and frankly I'm surprised it was met with such ridicule. Spell checking? Sorry, just too lazy. Didn't think that quallified for troll status.

None the less, such useless responses as your own don't contribute anything. If you disagree with my post, show your wit and express your disagreement. As for serious poster, that would be no. Just expressing my own feelings. On this particular subject, I respect the figure heads of the open source community for their contributions, but I disagree with their image. If these guys want to be taken serious, then they should put alittle more thought into their responses. To the rest of the world, or the common non-geek, they appear as trolls.

It's ironic that many in the geek community like using that "troll" word to label the rest of the world (and even themselves). It's nothing but a low level of name calling. Something indicative of 12 year olds. The true meaning of the word "troll" is reserved for the ones that use it. At least that's my interpretation....yeah yeah...how dare me not think like the rest of you....have a nice day anyway.