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!

+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

[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

[Our Man In Redmond]

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

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?

[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.

-

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!

[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!

[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!

[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!

[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!

[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.

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?

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?

[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?

[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?

[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: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.

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.

"Warwick Toomey" should be Warren Toomey

[Colin Douglas Howell]

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

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.

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.

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: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: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

farrago?

[El]

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

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: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.

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.

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 :)

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.

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?

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: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.

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

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 :-)

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.

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: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.

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

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.

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?!

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!

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.

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.

=========

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

Slander? Libel?

[siskbc]

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

Darl also does interviews.

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.

What do you say?

[MuParadigm]

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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?

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?

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. :)

"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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.