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More on SCO Code Snippets
anoopsinha writes "A story in linuxworld reports that SCO itself has no idea what the history of a particular snippet of code might be - even a high profile snippet like the one SCO highlighted at SCO Forum. Having no idea if its claims have merit has not stopped SCO so far, so we can expect more from SCO along the lines of big claims with no merit."
Why not use systematic biologist or linguists?
The world is full of systematic biologists which uncover relationships (natural history) between organisms every day. The may use DNA, anatomy or even ethology. Why not have a group of them analysing the raw data. Their methods have now been adopted by several linguists.
But, the linguists problems differ from that of most biologists, there is much infiltration of words from various languages into one language, therewith obscuring the true relationship between languages.
Maybe these guys can use an "objective method" to deduce the origins of various code snippets.
It's clear that SCO has filed its suit against IBM with absolutely no chance of winning (much like the fox news vs al franken "fair and balanced" suit). Not only has SCO filed a frivilous suit (a civil cause of action to do so) but has made baseless threats causing undue emotional distress to many users of Linux. Once SCO's suit is dismissed, look for some really nice lawsuits right back at 'em from many different parties. Should make for good popcorn munching entertainment. If it were me, I would sue Darly McB individually, in his personal capacity, as well as SCO.
Stupid people make stupid things profitable.
Hmm... I wonder if a modification of BLAST would work. It looks for DNA (or protein) sequence homology of a given sample vs. the genome of an organism or many organisms.
It would be interesting to do something like take all the whitespace out from the source tree and tar all the files together and use it as a "genome" to BLAST snippits of (likewise "compressed") code snippits.
Normal (DNA) BLAST results return with a similarity ratio and go on to show where they are/aren't homologous. I'm not sure how it would deal with expanding the relatively small nucleotide "alphabet" to that of source code.
Hmmm..
-- I'd say your post was about 3 monkeys, 18 minutes.
Not just that, IBM can go after SCO for intentional interference, abuse of process, and malicious prosecution.
Fight Spammers!
But this whole mess is _not_ orchestrated by SCO. Look at the people involved, look at the content of IBM's subpoena (the important parts are up on groklaw), a subpoena adressed to Canopy, not SCO.
Canopy has a history of taking a lot of influence in the companies they have a majority stake in, so that in effect, the company is managed from inside Canopy.
I think they wanted to use the threat of a SCO kamikaze against IBM, in order to maximise their returns for a dying company by extorting some money from them and getting some money out of the stock market.
Now that IBM apparently doesn't want to play this game, they are solely taking the stock market route - notice how the number of (absurd) press releases per week went considerably up after it was clear the IBM wouldn't cave in.
On IBM's POV, I think they know quite well what's going on, they know their real "enemies" are part of canopy, as can be seen by the content of their subpoena.
Now we can speculate even more:
Maybe Canopy underestimated something when setting up that plot. This whole IP/Copyright "weakness" of linux they are capitalizing on is of an enormous strategical importance for IBM.
IBM must make sure that no one else will ever get the idea to do what Canopy/SCO are doing now.
And, if I interpret IBM's subpoena correcty, this is what they are doing now. They are beginning to show the world that there is no secure way of playing the game that canopy is playing now. And they (IBM) have to make sure that everyone gets this message.
So I don't expect this mess to resolve quietly, I expect Canopy to come out of this seriously hurt.
I have been watching the SCO stock price for the last couple of months. When the SCO forum code was debunked, I looked expecting to see the stock price fall off a cliff. That's how it works isn't it? company suffers major bad news, stock price falls.
But no. The stock price went up, up and away, on blocks of very small shares.
It's clearly being heavily manipulated. But why? The best theory I've seen is that amateur investors are encouraged to sell this stock short, on the assumption that it's going to zero one way or another. Good assumption, but naive investment strategy. What happens then is that the price is manipulated way up. Eventually the short sellers are forced to buy at the higher market price to stop their losses. Who do they buy from? Why, the insiders and stock manipulators, who then laugh all the way to the bank.
Go and have a look on the Yahoo finance forums. The scam is so obvious, it's unbelievable that the mainstream media aren't picking up on it.
> would sue Darly McB individually, in his personal capacity, as well
> as SCO.
Darl bashing is even more fun now that we know he actually reads Slashdot! The Linuxworld piece links to a Computer World Interview with McBride. In the last question, Darl admits that he reads our rants on Slashdot and it hurts his feelings:
So Darl, if you are reading this: fuck you! We know your evidence is bogus, we are on to your stock scams (e.g. the Vultus "acquisition"), and we laugh at your suggestions that we cooperate to "monetize Linux". Give it up now, before we finally convince the SEC to launch an official investigation.
-Fyodor
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I remember someone saying basicly SCOs case against IBM is not that IBM took code from SCO and put it in Linux.
But that any code IBM wrote for AIX (under the SCO liccens) is SCOs property as AIX uses SCOs intelectual property as a code base.
In public SCO clames the issue is purely a matter of SCO property in Linux. Then SCO uses this and related FUD to frighten everyone into NOT suing SCO when SCO dose things like sell Linux binarys or bill Linux users for SCOs intelectual property. Things SCO has no legal right to do.
SCO basicly acts like they own Linux when they have no legal clame to it and use public clames and FUD to frighen anyone who might challange SCOs ownership clame into sillence.
The key is that SCO must win this lawsute against IBM.
What SCO is clamming is that any code writen for Unix while under liccens from SCO is automaticly SCOs property. I sereously doupt there is any language in SCOs liccens to back up this clame as IBM would not sign a contract with such an extream clame. IBM knows better. I think SCO is using the case of "implied ownership" and you probably won't find that term or anything like that term in legal text becouse I don't think implied ownership is recognised.
Microsoft attempted to pull something similar to what SCO is pulling way back. The part when SCO clames that SOME of SCO code is in Linux makes ALL of Linux now SCOs property.
Microsoft worked with IBM to improve OS/2. Microsoft then released Microsoft OS/2. The corts rulling is relevent to this in many ways.
First it clames that IBM retains ownership of the name OS/2 and the code IBM wrote for OS/2.
But it also clames that any code Microsoft added to OS/2 Microsoft may use any way Microsoft fits. They however do not have any right to code IBM wrote.
So basicly IBM did not give Microsoft the rights to IBMs code or OS/2 trademark. The Linux community did not give SCO rights to the Linux code or Linux trademark outside of the terms of the GPL liccens.
Microsoft did give IBM code so IBM can use it in OS/2 but Microsoft may also use that same code anyplace else Microsoft wants. IBM did put code in IBMs flavor of Unix and didn't actually give it to SCO so it's not clear if SCO can do ANYTHING with the code. But IBM still retains ownership of that code should IBM use it in Linux, OS/2 or any other IBM product.
Finally IBM clames to have not extracted any code from AIX for Linux to prevent contaminating Linux with someone elses intelectual property.
Becouse the infringment is supposidly between AIX and Linux not Unixware and Linux it's quite likely in my opinion that SCO dosen't actually have the code in question to make any compairisons with and instead SCO is using a compleatly diffrent approch by using behavure as the metric. But as any good programmer will know you can arrive at the same behavure with diffrent code.
IBM could shread AIX and Linux and post the results...
I don't actually exist.
The Q&A with McBride in Computer world contains one of the first clear (re)statements of SCO's (current) intent. In the interview, McBride's tone towards Linux is carefully conciliatory, conveying an attitude of "We accept that Linux will be around for a while, so let's find a way to work things out."
The 'problem' with Linux that needs to be resolved, he says, is the GPL. Or, as McBride puts it:
"If we're going into a new business environment around Linux, well, let's ask the question right upfront: Does the free business model work? Everything we've looked at, whether it's free Internet, free telecom, free music, all of these things tend to, for one reason or another, not work over an extended period of time. Clearly, the free model just about killed our company, and I would argue that it's going to kill a lot of other software companies if the GPL [General Public License] is able to gain a foothold and run rampant throughout the industry."
This statement first trots out the old "free software means free as in beer" misinformation and then proceeds with the explicit mud slinging about how the GPL will "kill" alot of companies if it is permitted to "gain a foothold" and "run rampant." Yikes! Scary stuff, if it were true. This bit of FUD is well formulated to push the fear buttons of your friendly neighborhood PHB.
And it raises many more questions. Like:
(1) Will the mainstream media eventually bite this SCO spin and spread the slander against the GPL?
(2) Will a significant portion of the open source community one day buy into this characterization of the problem, and allow the thin edge of the wedge that McBride has presented to fracture the community?
(3) Is Microsoft behind this FUD campaign against the GPL, which, at minimum, they must find exceptionally agreeable?
(4) Even if Microsoft and SCO aren't coordinating their attacks against the GPL and the open source community, do the similarities in their attacks indicate a fundamental hostility that we can expect capitalists to hold against the free software model?