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SCO Derides GPL, Will Revoke SGI's UNIX License
larry2k writes "PR newswire has an open letter from SCO to IBM.
From the letter: 'SCO believes that the GPL -- created by the Free Software Foundation to supplant current U.S. copyright laws -- is a shaky foundation on which to build a legal case.'" The release is also carried by NewsForge. Among other things, SCO says "By so strongly defending the controversial GPL, IBM is also defending a questionable licensing scheme through which it can avoid providing software indemnification for its customers."
Doesn't supplant mean "replace"? That's not what the GPL does.
And if you're wondering why you have not received an invoice from SCO for any Linux-based OS you may be running, benploni writes "From Groklaw: In this Detroit News story Blake Stowell explains why no one has received an invoice: 'SCO in August said Linux users could avoid lawsuits by paying a one-time fee of $699. The fee will rise to $1,399 on Oct. 15. Since the response to its appeal was adequate, SCO didn't send bills to thousands of Linux users, company spokesman Blake Stowell said.' [emphasis added]. We all knew there was no way they'd risk actually sending out invoices, and here's the proof."
So often this is what goes wrong with business. Obsession with money leads to destruction. Whatever happened to the co-existence theory... or has it ever gone anywhere?
http://mediagoblin.org/
SCO has been shouting that since the beginning. My bet is they have a legal DDOS already planned to sue every single one of IBM's customers. By IBM providing indeminification, they would be swamped responding to the individual claims. It may be hard to take out a 800lb gorilla with a slingshot, but half a million mosquitoes will suck one dry.
I remember an article or discussion in the last week about Darl getting a bonus and the freedom to cash out more stock once SCO has 4 consecutive profitable quarters. Febuary 4th would round this out nicely. Then Darl is free to jump ship and watch it burn. I'm sure someone will post the link below
Karma: SELECT `karma` FROM `users` WHERE `userid`=138474;
This is just the same old "All your codebase are belong to us" tactic as we've seen before. [ And yes, I understand the irony of using the same old joke for the same old story ]
look for stock dumping by SCO execs after news of this hits the market.
I live in the Provo area and the rumor I'm hearing from Novell employees is that IBM is looking to adquire Novell...
SCO's actions are much like intentionally walking up to that big, slobbering rabid dog and yanking it's chain. Hey, if they want to piss in the pool, they better not want to drink from it later. They claim the GPL is shaky. Following that logic, a majority of the code in Unix, for example, certainly must have been written by somebody by somebody else. If the GPL doesn't hold, according to them, then are they going to infringe on the rights of whoever actually DID write those millions of lines of code, even if they don't know who those people are?
IBM has alleged that SCO copied parts of GNU/Linux into its products, such as the Linux Personality module.
WHY ISN'T SCO OFFERING ITS CUSTOMERS INDEMNIFICATION AGAINST IBM'S CLAIMS???????
SCO has shown that they believe that indemnifying customers over alleged violations of IP is critical to a business. Why won't they offer it themselves?
It's only going to get weirder than this, now. I was asked once why a colleague was always causing problems. It seemed impossible to figure out why he did what he did. My comment was--you're assuming there is a real purpose behind his actions. Sometimes, people simply operate at a level above their intellectual capacity and what you take for malice is merely an inability to comprehend the consequences of their actions. So far, in my humble opinion, McBride has acted rationally within the precepts of his beliefs. For whatever reason, he believes that he owns the very concept of Unix; therefore, he will do whatever he can to make that appearance occur. He will open his company to lawsuits (tying up his goal to owning all of Unix) if he attempts to bills; therefore, they've changed their view again. This is called cognitive dissidence in psychology--bring your attitudes inline with your actions when your original attitudes contradict acted behavior. The old "given a choice between changing one's mind or proving you don't have to, nine times out of ten people get busy on the proof." My guess is that they're diligently working on the suits for a bunch of other people (continue scare) and digging up all they can on the history of Unix to attempt to pervert it even more (continue fud). And, they have to kill BSD as a loophole for source; otherwise, they're in deep doo-doo in court since it seems they didn't realize that what they took is from BSD. On the other hand, they could do something completely different. Just because they are rational with in their beliefs, doesn't mean they're predictable; hence, grab some popcorn for your morbid curiosity and watch, like I am. Hell, it's better than anything on Fox. :o)
Bel, the mostly sane..
Bel, the mostly sane.. "Of course I can't see anything! I'm standing on the shoulders of idiots." -- Me
he might be viewed as bit of a nut job.
You might be interested in reading this article at MetroActive.com
Excerpt:
In the chapter "My Contact," Firmage writes that in the white-hot weeks leading up to USWeb's IPO, a year ago, he was awakened by his alarm at 6:10am one morning but then he decided to hit the snooze instead of going to the gym.
"A remarkable being, clothed in brilliant white light, appeared hovering over my bed in my room," he writes. "Out of him emerged an electric blue sphere, just smaller than a basketball, which was swirling with what looks like electrical arcs. It left his body, floated down, and entered me."
Firmage soon founded the International Space Sciences Organization with $3 million of his own money to administer a project he called "Kairos," a Greek word meaning "the right moment" or "a critical time." Firmage believes we live in a "kairos" in which humanity is finally advanced enough to comprehend alien beings.
Not that Joe is wrong but this is just another interesting insight into this guy.
I loved the point he made about what if Physics, etc were developed based on proprietary interests. zinnnnnnnnnnnnng!
Word is that the Salt Lake Tribune(?) published one of those "SCO -- which is a 'best performing stock' with +800% -- is run by nice Mormons, IBM is the evil Goliath"-articles today.
Belief is the currency of delusion.
OK, this is getting a bit obvious (to me, anyway).
/. waiting to see who to go after next.
/me grabs his tin-foil hat (and continues to play with the 2.6 RC...).
There's an article refering to SGI's stuff (The Linux in Hollywood one) this morning and now McBride starts pointing a finger at them too. I wonder how many SCO FUD Spinners read
I'm not a prophet or a stone-age man,
I'm just a mortal with potential of a super man.
SCO like so many other businesses that have lost their way is grasping at straws. Anything it can do to survive it will do; even absurd things that only apear to offer survival. SCO did correctly see that it would soon be obsolete. It's Unix business was dwindling and it was not likely to be a leader in Linux distribution. It is dark times like these that can lead to really far out there tactics. They must have seen the success that important IP companies have. If what SCO proposes to be true is true then it holds quite a lot of cards and may be able to license the world. The problem for SCO in this regard is that Unix and all it's decedents have long since been set free.
After domesticated horses have been let loose and have bread in the wild it is a tough claim to make for the original horse owners to lay stake to this offspring. Especially if the owners left the barn door open on purpose.
There are 10 kinds of people in the world.
Those who understand binary and those who don't.
A friend of mine is a broker, and she has been trying to sell SCO short for several weeks, but all the investors have it tied up so that no one can sell the stocks short. Sad, actually. It'd be a good way to make some quick cash.
Assume for a second that I was completely clueless as to the verbage and the scope of the GPL. Also assume for a second that I am a sysadmin of Linux servers (I know, I know, this is a hypothetical) and I am served with notice from SCO. I pay the US$699 x however many servers I have.
Now, when this case finally gets to trial, and SCO loses (God willing), could the company turn around and sue for extortion/other illegality, since it has been proven in court that SCO has no legal basis to enforce/collect licensing fees?
SGI's response:
http://oss.sgi.com/letter_100103.txt
IBM buys SGI. Just as a way to piss off SCO without bending to their whim.
Yeah, I just came to the same conclusion myself, took me a little bit.
It seemed very odd to me that SCO has called for "user" indemnification from IBM (and others) for some time.
But makes sense, it is just part of a strategy to try to "maximize" possible litigation extort... er ... income.
Joe Linux-user has practically empty pockets, IBM has very large money filled pockets. If Joe Linux-user has indemnity from IBM, we can sue him, tying up some IBM money and resources, and possibly gain a nice settlement as a result.
We sue enough of em, and that would give us leverage to force IBM's hand to buy us out to shut us up and remove us as a thorn in their side. Bwahahahaha, ain't SCO brilliant?
Unfortunately, IBM is basically saying "Hey, SCO. Homey don't play dat."
Regards,
Fredrick
I think the explanation is probably simpler, and some docs (e.g. the Renaissance Ventures stuff) on the indispensible groklaw back up this hypothesis:
SCO really thought IBM would quietly settle. They probably pissed their pants when IBM called their bluff. So they are trying to exert pressure on IBM thru IBM's customers by stirring up this idea of indemnification.
For me, this hypothesis passes the "Ockham's Razor" test. Simple and believable.
> > individuals are smart, people as a whole are stupid
> I can accept that.
Why, because it makes no sense? I've heard people say things like that before, yet it seems to defy logic.
One lemming is perfectly normal. A whole group of them is not. If only one is stupid and jumps off a cliff, then the rest follow. Another example is crowd, and how they will panic as a group, like a concert, and end up killing others accidently.
How often have you been in an audience of some sort, not paying attention, but everyone started clapping, so you did too? A minor, but common, example.
My personal conclusion would be that an individual thinks as an individual, as long as he is alone, but when he is in a group, he will defer his own opinions and follow the majority of those around him, assuming the majority knows best. I would bet money that this is an instictual reaction for man and animal, akin to "follow the herd and stay together to stay safe".
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
The SCO Group
355 South 520 West
Suite 100
Lindon, Utah 84042 USA
801-765-4999 phone
801-765-1313 fax
Actually, if i wanted to do some harm, I would suggest that the masses do the same thing that was recently done to a notorious spammer: search for "free catalog" on the internet and fill in the information with Darl's name and SCO's information. If a few thousand people did a few hundred catalog requests each, this would mean about a ton of mail a day.
Now, I am sure they get a ton of mail as it is, normal mail, bills, hate mail, etc. but this still sucks to have to deal with. DDOM (distributed denial of mail)
If you have the bucks, and use a good LD service like the 10-10-987 at 3 cents a minute, you could just fax them thousands of pages that have only one word on the front. I bet they use a paper fax machine. At least it would tie it up for legitimate use if enough people would war dial it. Would also work with the regular number, with people keeping their phone tied up by asking stupid questions.
I guess we could all order pizzas from the local dominoes to be delivered there, but I think they would catch on to 10,000 pizza's being ordered and thats not fair to them....
Yea, nasty kiddie stuff, but fun as hell to at least think about.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
Also, one brain cell doesn't act particularly intelligent on its own, but put 100 billion together and you have quite a bit of intelligence. This certainly doesn't defy logic. There's no reason to expect a group to have exactly the same properties as the individual parts that make it up.
Because people and ants are not directly or even slightly comparable, psychologically speaking. Ants are mentally wired to act collectively for common purpose. In general, people are wired for self-interest and can act contrary to leaders, but...
The observation that "a person is smart, people are dumb" is a useful simplification of the differences between individual psychology and group psychology. Quite simply, people act differently in groups than they do when they believe they are solitary. Usually, they cede some of their decision making to the group consensus. Not always, and only to a certain extent, but any number of experiments have been completed that substantiate that assertion.
As a result of this evidence, media, marketing, and politics have all evolved to take advantage of group psychology. Further, people spending any time in those professions generally opine that people are rather stupid. But when you and I look around and talk to our friends and family, we generally observe that we are among fairly smart people. That dichotomy goes directly back to the statement you objected to.
So forget about the ants. Analogies only stretch so far and the breadth of variety in nature is absolutely breathtaking. If there ever was an psychological opposite to the ant, we're probably it.
Regards,
Ross
I'm interested in seeing their first couple of SCO's quarterly financial reports after they can't collect money from IBM and SGI. They just need to get sun and a couple other vendors to stop paying, and they will only major source of income may be litigation. I can't imagine too many people adopting their products and services with their legal record. Their only income besides litigation would be vendor lock-in.
>The only way to get around this is to claim that all GPLed code has really been put in the public domain (against the specific written intent of the copyright holders).
I cannot point you directly to the quotes, but this is exactly what they mean by the GPL not standing up. It is bizarre. And it seems based on the common fallacy of thinking that once you have the code you are in the clear... the idea that it's not illegal to possess copyrighted material, just to recieve it. Somehow, they think they can invalidate the GPL in the sense that there are no possible monetary damages. I.e. the damages of violating the GPL have no monetary value and therefore are nothing to worry about.
It may be true about the monetary damages (but I doubt it... there are other ways to set value to the code, e.g. you can use SCOs $1400/CPU figure. ) Anyway, even if that's true it's clear that you would be enjoined from using the GPLed code... you might not get a penny, but at the very least the user would have to stop using the code.
Now a lost of IANAL types makes this mistake, and quite a few lawyers will argue it for a fee, but there is no way it will come down like that in court.
-pyrrho
- enforceable, the part of the GPL that says recipients can redistribute;
- non-enforceable, (some of) the extra conditions imposed on the redistributor.
Surely, "free redistribution, but only to males" would not hold. But then the question is how it would fail. If the copyright holder sues someone for redistributing to females, will the outcome be to remove the restriction, or (as you claim) to disallow redistribution entirely?I think what they really mean when they say the GPL won't hold up is that they plan on all GPL'ed software being declared public domain. I believe they will argue that the copy rights have not been aggressivly defended, and are therefore lost.
> Actually, if i wanted to do some harm,...
Hmm, I gues this has been moded up to level 5
because the Linux community is so ethical.