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SGI Code Changes Not Enough, Says SCO
yeremein writes "According to this vnunet.com article, SCO's code changes Update: 10/04 20:51 GMT by T : (This should read "SGI's" rather than "SCO's.") removing arguably System-V-related code from SGI's Linux submissions is 'not enough.' According to Blake Stowell of SCO,
'Making minor amendments to its XFS file system doesn't cure the breach. SGI must do more as outlined [in the August letter] to cure all of their breaches.' But later on in the article, we learn what was outlined in the August letter:
'We don't believe that SGI has taken all of the steps necessary to cure all of the breaches, and in fact in our letter to them, we state "SGI's breaches of these agreements cannot be cured."' So SCO essentially told SGI, 'You're in violation of our contract and unless you remedy the violations, we'll pull your UNIX license. Oh, BTW, you can't remedy the violations.' This looks to me like the clearest example yet of how SCO is acting in bad faith." Read on below for another snippet of SCO strangeness.
An anonymous reader writes "As many are aware, SCO has sought (and got) a 4 month extension to its IBM lawsuit. According to the Salt Lake Tribune: 'SCO spokesman Blake Stowell said Tuesday that he understood the extension is being sought "for the purpose of gaining documents from IBM related to the patents they claim. . . . Some of the patents aren't even filed with the U.S. Patent Office, as far as we can learn."' I thought this was worth looking at, and quickly found that the patents in question are 4,814,746, 4,821,211, 4,953,209, and 5,805,785 - which can be found by typing in their numbers in this USPTO form."
Can someone tell me if IBM has suffered in the form of sales of it's AIX product due to having the license terminated?
It seems that SCO is just trying to piss off the Open Source community. Breaches that can't be remedied? How exactly is this possible? Programs can be written hundreds of different ways. I think SCO is making up its rules as it goes along, much like a race I participated in during 5th grade. I clearly won, but my opponent then seated himself and said, "er... you have to sit down too, so I win!" That's no good.
Esoteric reference.
That doesn't make sence since the vast majority of Linux systems in use don't require any of the features SCO is claiming rights to.
You know what i think is fun?
When this finally blows, everybody will act surprised. People will start making references to scandals of the past. But i am sure it will be news to the world even thought it's been discussed in Slashdot (and other places) to the point where i know more about SCO than my sister.
Slashdot Sig. version 0.1alpha. Use at your own risk.
As it looks it will never be enough.
And looking at two factors:
1. SCO is not willing to take any approach to solving problem (FSF approached them, they didn't answer), nor willing to take any solution as creditable
2. SCO is currently making more money than it would if problem would be solved
the only solution is to take this to court as soon as possible. Then everything will matter again. Until then just let SCO bark as it does.
Signature Pro version 1.13.2-3 release 83.5 beta3try7 after-breakfast edition
SCOs business plan seems to be "If it ever so much as looked at/like Unix, then you owe us money"
It's clear that these people want to destroy *nix, destroy the GPL, the Open Source community... the whole concept of Intellectual Property altogether. Not to mention (but I will) that they don't intend to stop until rob all monetary value of any software and/or services derived therefrom.
It's war. SCO declared it, and is actively on the attack. They intend to vanquish their enemies... us. To win this war, you defeat them, crush them... DESTROY them.
IBM, SGI and the rest of SCO's declared enemies should join forces and take these people down... and crush them so badly that noone else should ever even THINK of pulling this nonsense again.
The problem with socialism is that they always run out of other people's money. - Margaret Thatcher
Then I want to let SCO try to prove in court that "thier" code was required for Linux to thrive. It would also show a judge that SCO's potential customer base for UnixWare was a tad smaller than SCO likes to claim.
This would be better than replacing the code short term. It would show that the technologies which SCO says customers would have purchased UnixWare to get were in fact virtually irrelevant.
The speedy trial thing in the 6th amendment applies to criminal cases. The SCO stuff to date all involves civil cases. Both sides in this dispute have been allowed extensions, it's all a part of the game.
Behind every delusion there is a seemingly rational thought process. Usually reality is twisted to fit, but here goes:
SCO owns Unix (not really, but...). Unix is worth ??? billion in sales each year. It is ours, since we own Unix. We are generous, so those who put it on disk can have a few bucks for the trouble.
Since we own Unix, and own all derivatives of Unix, (original AT&T contract) the derivatives, such as RCU, XFS, etc are ours too.
Some lowlifes such as IBM and SGI DARED to give away what is ours. We will put them out of business. All their customers will flock to us, the Real Owners of Unix. They will use the real Unix, which will include all of our intellectual property, such as Samba, Linux, XFS, RCU etc. We will get rich. Everyone will beg to use our Intellectual Property!
World Domination!
Derek
You do not go after someone with shallow pockets on a flimsy claim on a contingency basis.
They might be rodents but they are not dumb rodents.
Adding SGI to the IBM claim makes the issues harder for SCO as both IBM and SGI can point the other party if they need to. SCO can't just claim that One or the other did somethng they have to be specific, so it adds legal risk with pretty much zero legal upside.
Help fight continental drift.
You know, I see just the opposite.
At the company I work for, (and I've heard others doing the same), they're easing back on Linux for mission critical applications and instead buying AIX boxes.
There is no rationality to that at all. After all, IBM is the only one who's actually been sued. Perhaps they have more faith in IBM's legal department than they do in their own.
Slightly OT: I just had a couple of P-series boxes get back-ordered for about a month. My rep told me that the Department of Homeland Security ordered a bunch of AIX boxes - so many that it put manufacturing behind. Tom Ridge must not be too worried about all of this.
Hot Damn! It's the Soggy Bottom Boys!
- SCO showing some Linux code that it claimed infringed its IP
- That code being tracked back to SGI
- That code being shown to have been removed from the kernel for being too crufty
I think this was the "Greek" code sample from Germany, anyone know for sure?UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
If it were avalible on such a server, how many line by line comparisons would we have in a week? How far would SCO's stock fall once a few reporters got a hold of it? (remember, reporters could republish a lot of it if it is nessisary for their news reporting WITHOUT SCO's approval, and WITHOUT violating (c) law)
What kind of a judge could possibly issue that kind of a ruling? Imagine now, if nVidia accuses ATI of violating its IP and demands all ATI customers to pay nVidia $699 within 3 months, or $1499 afterwards. Chances of this kind of ruling, even if SCO pulls out a miracle and proves something, are somewhere in between -0 and +0.
is that you can easily consider windows, dos, etc unix.
Dos is a deriviative of unix, (a bad one) and dos begat windows. so technically, windows is unix deep down. Dont forget Xenix, a microsoft-based unix back in the 80's.
and at the rate of nonsense sco's yammering at, they would be going after microsoft.. but they arent, why? because I bet that microsoft is backing this nonsense. ironically this starts just a linux starts getting some real muscle on it, and now microsoft is starting the DRM shit... it's too ironic to be coincidences... it's all working hand in hand.
SCO could sue microsoft, but for some reason, they havent even made a move towards it.
oh and they could slam apple next, since it uses NeXT and Darwin; which they'll more than likely do.
Basically, SCO's bullying all of microsoft's competition right and left with very little regard for their own well being, which they probably have some nice cuts of fresh money waiting for them after doing all of this.
However, all it'll do is get these companies pissed off, and they'll either start their own systems from scratch or fully back linux. (which would be nice)
SCO's going to find themselves in the Corporation obituaries soon enough, so really, we need to stop bitching about their bullshit, I wouldnt be surprised if they were reading through all these comments for ideas on their next targets (aka other companies that use "unix" )
I don't know how much of that is true. I'm not a patent lawyer, but I listened to an episode of Science Friday (listen to past episodes in RealAudio or Windows Media Player for free) where they had an hour-long segment on inventions and patents. They said that you have to go get patents in other countries as well.
Like everyone here, I don't believe that there is a case. I could care less if IBM breached a contract with SCO: it won't affect free software once the infringments (if they exist) are released to be fixed. In any decision, I cannot fathom a scenario where SCO will be allowed to "win" in their battle against Linux.
Likewise, I also agree that the SCO execs are "pumping and dumping". Whether they will get away with it or not, time will tell.
But I think that the main source who is pulling the strings has GOT to be Microsoft. They have figured out that throwing FUD at Linux has not, and likely will never, help. Plus their lawyers have examined the GPL and likely come to the conclusion that it is completely unassailable.
Linux has been making steady progress and slowly taking market share from Microsoft. This comes at a time when MS has to start charging more for their products in order to grow revenues (since they have essentially no room to grow in terms of customers) and when they have virtually no new products of note ready for release in the next couple of years! This is a prime time for customers to look into Linux adoption.
How can MS stem the tide? They can't start directly hurling the legal scare tactics (probably get even Ashcroft looking at them in disapproval for that), so they quietly get the SCO execs on board, and get them to do their dirty work for them? Anyone think this is plausable?
Look at the tomato! Isn't it sad? He can't dance! Poor tomato!
Good faith.
/. lawyers out there: How exactly do we go about filing a class-action lawsuit against SCO? I was debating filing a small-claims case against them, as a linux user, for extortion, and if they show up, great, we'll get to see the code finally, and if not, then I win and get the article slashdotted (Not to mention I get a good $500 or so spending cash at the expense of our good friend Darl).
If they do things without any of SCO's help in an effort to show that they don't WANT to have this happen, they do everything in their power to help alleviate the situation and as such cut SCO's losses. Something SCO was supposed to do in the first place (called Mitigating your Losses).
SCO is being stupid. SGI mitigates their losses for them and SCO tells them it's not enough. THEN DO IT YOURSELF ALREADY! They're complaining like little 5 year olds who have dropped their ice cream cone. Someone buys them a new one and they complain that they wanted THE FIRST one.
Well tough shit. So far SCO has a fantastic case:
- Code they're not willing to point out to the public, but yet is going to be submitted as public evidence anyways, because otherwise they have ZERO case.
- SGI acts of good faith to help mitigate losses that are met with "NOT ENOUGH!"
- A plethora of public statements that contradict each other.
- Accusing all Linux Users of violating their IP without a single shred of proof thus far.
- Examples of code they've backpedalled and said more recently that they weren't examples of code they were talking specifically about. Especially since that code was proven, even though it was in System V, was NOT copywrited or owned by SCO at ALL.
All this is building a bigger and bigger case such that SCO is going to have a shitload of answering to do and that they stand no chance of making ANY money off of these lawsuits... and the only places they're going to make money are (do do do DOO) extortion.
So, a question for any
How plausible is this? I'm serious here. It's about time that we as such a large community (How many hits does slashdot get in a day?) take some action and show that corporate bullying is not a plausible tactic. We need to make SCO fall and fall HARD for their crimes THIS QUARTER before Darl gets praised for two back-to-back positive quarters and then sells all his stock just in time to watch SCO fall in a blaze from his kushy $500,000 summer home in Maine.
So, do I or anybody else have a case? Lawyers, please.... there's probably a good dot-com-like-boom to be had out of this for at least a couple months.
Karma: Non-Heinous
In addition to outlasting the murder trial of O. J. Simpson, the trial of SCO vs. Linux Allies will be far more complicated and cost millions of dollars in expert witnesses.
In the trial of O. J. Simpson, the issue was simple. Did Simpson have a motive to kill his wife and did he kill his wife?
In the SCO trial, we are dealing with subtle technical issues and shades of gray. How does one define "minor amendment"? Certainly, no one on the jury will have a clue. The only exposure that an average American has to an operating system (OS) is the color pictures representing icons in Windows. She has no knowledge of kernel-level code.
What will happen is that SCO, IBM, and (apparently now) SGI will subpoena expert witnesses to support or refute the claim that something is a "minor amendment" to the kernel code, but the jury will be dazed as it tries to figure out who is telling the truth on something that the juror has no knowledge. The professors at Carnegie-Mellon University will earn a small bundle of money in serving as expert witnesses in the geek equivalent of the "trial of the century". The court itself will need to hire computer-science professors to explain the intricate details of how an OS works.
Above all, you will see bearded and balding 50-year-old programmers waxing nostalgic about the parts of UNIX that they coded.
Yes. One might be tempted to call it "excessive" due diligence, but that will not hurt when it finally goes to trial, if ever.
Which brings up the question, does SGI even *have* enough cash on hand to make them worth suing? Given SGI's reliance on government contracts, would any federal agencies be willing to file an amicus brief on SGI's behalf, supporting SGI's contentions on the basis of its mitigatory actions and the government's reliance on some SGI systems?
Perhaps SGI's "excessive" mitigatory actions are a necessary prelude to garnering support for their case from other quarters.
Frankly, I can't understand why SCO would pursue this into court at this point in time. One can argue that a taking on a cash-poor defendant could give SCO an easy win to set precedent for the IBM suit, but for that reasoning to work, SCO should have sued SGI first. There's no chance now that a suit brought against SGI could be decided before the IBM case.
Putting SGI out of business doesn't do SCO any good. SCO won't be able to further develop SGI's business and technology even if they were able to claim the assets. Nor does it do SGI's customers any good to have SGI's products made obsolete - even more quickly than is already occurring - by a SCO management more interested in litigation than technological development.
The only possibility I can see for SCO getting anything out of this is if they hope to force SGI into a settlement. It may be that SCO is just looking for a quick 10 or 20 million to finance the IBM suit, and would settle with SGI for that little. It would also have the added benefit of scoring another profitable quarter for Darl, if settled quickly enough. SCO may find, however, that even SGI's competitors would be willing to pick up the legal tab before letting SCO win a penny out of this.
The argument that it is difficult to make a derivative work of GPL code, where the derivative work includes proprietary code that is integrated with the GPL code. Can't release it under the GPL, it's proprietary code, but Linux _needs_ UNIX, so the only way to do this is get rid of the GPL for the good of Linux.
SGI wants to contribute XFS to Linux, or perhaps any other OS that is interested. They are doing this for everyone's benefit. If I understand it correctly, SCO is saying that SGI cannot do that, no matter what. Even if there is no actual SVR4 code in XFS, it's because SGI is a UNIX licensee, and therefore they cannot open source anything that they use to make the SVR4 UNIX essentials that they license from SCO better. It's controversial, but SCO knows that.
But from another angle, SVR4 has a monopoly of sorts when it comes to UNIX compliant OS'es. Even so, if they are saying that you cannot simultaneously license UNIX code from them, and open source code that you, and only you, as the licensee, wrote to improve and extend the functionality of those UNIX essentials that you license from SCO, then what SCO is really doing, if they get their way, is that they are making SVR4 a kind of Medusa, or a poison oak, or something.
Isn't there a chance that those who want to continue using the GPL, and contributing to open source, will not want to have anything to do with SCO or UNIX SVR4?
If SCO can prove their point in court, no one is going to want to touch SVR4 with a ten foot pole!
Linux is still going to become the OS of choice, no matter how much re-coding is necessary, if any, that is... And if SVR4 won't play nice with it, there will be consequences.
Or maybe not... there is no way to speculate what will take place when all these issues go to court.
One thing that I am confident in saying is that XFS is an excellent file system, and even if it weren't available free of charge, it would be worth some money to have a file system like that.
Actually, I believe that part of the settlement terms between AT&T and BSD was that the snapshot of the (then current) BSD code was released into the public domain, relieving AT&T of the need to dig through all of SysV in order to insert the proper BSD copyright notices.
(Remember: to 1000 eyes any problem is shallow -- but SCO only has 3).
Right now, I think that the best thing for both the Linux community (and SGI) to do woud be to stop hunting code similarities for SCO, and challenge them to tell us specifically where the violations are, or shut up and go find someone to harrass.
If SCO is willing to document specific copyright violations, then I'll happily do whatever I can to help verify and (once verified), fix the breaches. -- and by specific I mean file name and line numbers in both original SCO code and Linux releases. (they would also have to specify release version).
Until they're willing and able to do something like that, they can eat their press releases .
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
You may be right, but I doubt it, unless you mean the set of code forming the intersection of BSD's and ATT's code bases.
I can't believe that the UC Board of Regents would make *all* of their code to that point public domain. Also, if the rumors regarding the settlement are true, ATT was required to insert proper UC copyright notices in something like 70 routines.
Since the settlement is closed, we can't really verify your assertion unless you are someone who was privy to the terms or can post a reference where it can be verified.
OK, so maybe I shouldn't have split this into two pieces..... neither half really makes sense without the other.
What I was trying to point out is that SCO's apparent tactic is rather like the parsley, sage, Rosemary and Thyme thing. Examined, each piece by itself, it almost makes sense -- but not quite. The "then she'll be a true love of mine" is analogous to SCO's admonitions to the Linux community to "doesn't cure the breach". However, like the lover's call to do things like make him a Cambric shirt (apparently a patch-quilt design) "with never a seam, nor needle work), The job is all but impossible.
Even more sinister than that, I'm now convinced that SCO really has no proof of copyright or patent violation -- nor do they any longer have the expertise to even attempt to find such violations if they existed. What they've done instead is to throw the gauntlet down to the Open Source community and challenge us to find any possible breaches ourselves. -- and should we ever find such a substantial breach, SCO would probably use thatas their proof of breach.
Given that the open source community has failed to find any substantive proof of violation and that SCO's only proof so far have turned out to be public domain on one hand and possible proof that thy have (once again) violated the BSD copyright on the other, I think that it's time that we stopped doing their legal research for them and challenged them back.
The Open Source community has a responsibility (morally, if not legally) to investigate any real accusation of copyright violation (with file names line numbers and annotations) and correct any allegation found to have substance. SCO, on the other hand, has dramatically failed to provide such an allegation, and so we should now treat their unsubstantiated rantings as precisely what we've determined them to be -- spectacular garbage. If they should ever provide anything substantive, then we should respond to it appropriately.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.